ApacheFishingVentures

Gonna be hitting a big river this weekend where i'll have more options than just running a bead or small jig a foot below my float so i'm just wondering what everyone's preferred method for targeting bigger steelhead on the float rod is. Up size? Downsize? live bait or artificial? Is colour a factor for these bigger fish? is depth relevant when you're fishing in 30 feet of water? Or are you just fishing a normal rig and just hoping a big one hits? I've hooked into a few tanks using minnows and minnow imitations but i've thought about tying hollow body pike style flies on a shank with a trailer hook like an intruder but in a 6-8" profile and running that under a float or on the spey rod but im thinking i'll be float fishing more this weekend. I don't know, kinda just thinking out loud here. Let me all know what your go to is for these tanks!

Over the last few weeks of this weather, I have been limited to mostly only being able to ice fish for pike and this has led to me experimenting with tip up presentations. I've caught fish with big minnows, small minnows, live and dead, leader, no leader, 3 way swivel, drop shot and anywhere from bottom to right below the ice... It seems as though some days they prefer the live bait, and other days they prefer the dead bait. Ive used quick strike rigs and single hooks and i honestly think i get a better hookup ratio on a single hook through the dorsal, however i will be experimenting with 12" thawed suckers this weekend and i feel as though i will definitely want a quick strike rig for such a large bait. Now my question is really just to gauge if there is any kind of trend with with presentation choice and fish landed and possibly to offer new anglers different methods to rig their flags with! Thanks for all the answers ahead of time, and no need to reveal any big secrets if you don't want to, just chime in with an opinion of whats already being talked about. Tight lines, pray for cold!

Come winter, i jig lipless cranks through the ice at some point every time i go out. So why not have an assortment of sizes and colours!? Cause they are way to freaking expensive and i barely toss them in the summer. The solution? Go to walmart and grab every Blaze lipless crankbait they have, pop off the hooks, put one big high quality trebble in the middle of the bait and you've got a a dozen lipless cranks for $3.50 a piece! Go check them out, you won't regret having them in your tackle box.

Hey folks,

Just wanted to post my experience with hooking up a Humminbird ice ducer to your average Humminbird portable unit.

I recently acquired a Humminbird Piranhamax 197c along with a Humminbird ice ducer and upon turnning it on, my head unit was displaying "Transducer not connected". At this point I started getting a little worried that the unit was not compatible especially since it was not listed as a supported unit on the list of fishfinders to begin with.

After a bit of research, i found out that a Humminbird transducer for a boat will have 3 pins in the connection and one of those pins is what tells the head unit the water temperature as well as the fact that a transducer is connected. Humminbirds ice ducers however, do not have that temperature pin due to the fact that surface temps in the winter will be relatively stable in the 32f range so it just doesn't require it as much. So without the temperature pin, the unit does not know that the ice ducer is connected and will automatically go into simulation mode.

To override this, simply turn the unit on and immediately select the normal mode and like any other transducer, it should start to give you a signal, and in my opinion, a stronger signal than the summer tranducer.

So if you have an older Humminbird kicking around, don't be afraid to experiment with the ice ducer even if there's nothing indicating that it's compatible. If the connection looks the same, it should work.

Hope this helps a few people having a hard time dishing out the $600 on a vex.

Flashers might be slightly more sensitive and less delayed but my graph can pick up a panfish jig no problem and is only maybe a second behind real time and i like the amount of layers and colors a graph displays as opposed to a few bars on a dial. 

Feel free to ask me questions about the setup, it will change the way you ice fish if you haven't already tried a sonar on the ice.

Hey all,

I've been living in Hamilton for about a year and been taking advantage of the areas great migratory trout fishing! However it would sometimes be nice to know that someone has my back if something were to go wrong and or if i couldn't land that fish of a life time on my own. I was gonna go hit the lower niagara this weekend but i'm open to anything and am open to fishing with anyone in need of a partner. Catch and release 99% of the time, float and fly, lets get it! Anyone who needs a fishing partner this weekend, just pm me and we will hash out a plan.