NAIFC

John Fishing in 3-D

Have you ever been sitting right next to someone without one single bite, while he just hammers the fish one after another?? You try everything but the kitchen sink and you would try that too if you could get it down the hole. You cut holes around him. Nothing. You watch his technique and copy it. Nothing. You put on the same bait. Nothing. You think, man he must just have the mother load sitting right under his hole. Well, almost.

Most likely, that guy catching the fish was using the 3-D world view of the fish whether he knew it or not.

Fishermen often think of the under water world in 1 or 2-D at best. We use a flasher or graph or look down the hole. We are not looking at the world as the fish sees it. We see it like a photo or paper map. Now I am not suggesting that we need to suit up and go for a swim under the ice, but that would be pretty cool. However, I do believe we need to try to think about how and what a fish can or can’t see.

Panfish or bait fish generally travel, feed, and rest based primarily on some form of cover/structure. How tight they hold is often determined by how low on the food chain they are. Predators know all this. They position themselves to feed based on how high they are in the food chain and the tactical advantage they have over their prey. Do you get the picture? It is a visual game of cat and mouse. So the lower on the food chain you are, the more concealed you need to be. Fish have to chose the safest or the “best path” to get from point A to B.

Now, I’ll also add that many fish chose the same ‘best path’ to move from one area to the next. These paths are actually like run ways that a deer uses in the woods and for precisely the same reasons; cover and ease of movement. Fish use open pockets in the weeds like a deer uses meadows. They are gathering places and places to feed. Here fish count on numbers of eyes to alert them of approaching danger. Thick areas of weed or brush for fish are like heavy cover to any woodland animal, they offer increased security in trying times. And did you ever just see a big buck just lay down in a slight depression out in the middle of large field when the pressure is bad? Just like the main basin fish did on Boom lake at nationals this year. I think you get the big picture here, right? Most people understand and acknowledge all this info about deer and other animals because we live on the same plane. We see things the exact same way, from the same perspective, 3-D. But for most, the underwater world is still viewed as if it were 2-D, like a painting.

Has your paradigm shifted yet? I’ll go farther. You can have paths and pockets and intersections of paths at any depth in the water column. Some paths are wide, some narrow, some for evening use, some midday, etc. Some are like a super highway. Picture a narrow mid depth bar, covered with coontail that gently slopes into a huge blood worm filled basin, connecting a huge sparsely weeded flat. You get the picture now? NO. Still having trouble visualizing. That’s OK. We have under water camera’s. You can actually see things from the fish’s perspective. The other thing you can do that’s pretty simple, but only practical as to the extent of water clarity, is to look under the ice through your hole. I will often look as far to the sides of my hole as I can. I look for pockets, clumps of weeds, edges etc.

I recently heard the underwater camera referred to as a “toy” at an ice fishing seminar. Trust me, it’s not a toy. If you really want to know WHY, drop a camera down. Seeing, is truly understanding.

I’ll give you an example of another type of structure in the 3-D world of fish; Water Clarity. That’s right, dirty water is like hard structure to a fish. I was fishing in Iowa several yrs ago looking for bluegills. I drilled a series of holes down a weedy slope. The water on top of the slope was like a caramel mocha late’, zero visibility. The water at the base, 10′ deeper was crystal clear, but there were no fish down there. When I’d dropped a jig into the dirty water, I’d see fish racing in on my flasher to slam the bait as soon as it got within 1′ of the bottom. It was like magic. Two inches higher in the water column and nothing. I was amazed. How could those fish see my jig in that dirty water to race in to hit it? I really wanted to watch them and see, so I dropped the camera. I was utterly amazed. The water within 1′ of the bottom was absolutely gin clear. The fish were using that blanket of cloudy water and just hammering my baits under it’s protective canopy. I’ve seen that many times since then, but not nearly as dramatically.

Here’s another example; snow built up along a pressure ridge creates a shadow that penetrates into the water column as far as the light reaches. This becomes a natural edge for the fish to follow. If it connects two key pieces of structure or weed beds, it can become a highway too.

One last example. Have you ever fished a crib? You know, a man made piece of structure, placed on the bottom to provide cover for fish. Many times they are placed on key structural bottom locations, like an inside bend or point. That makes them really attractive for fish. But if you’re going to get those fish out, you have to fish in 3-D. Many times those fish won’t leave the security of their crib to hit a bait, no matter how tasty it looks. At a tournament in WI this season, my partner and I used a combination of camera’s and flashers to thread our jigs through the slats on a tightly built crib to secure our top 10 finish and qualify for nationals. The fish were so spooked from all the traffic during the prefish week, that dropping the camera parallel to the crib, just pushed the fish in deeper. So we, used our flashers to position our depth when fishing along side or inside the structure and down viewed with the cameras to thread our jigs deep inside. The jigs had to be right on the money or the fish just wouldn’t hit them. If your jig was off the mark by inches, it would sit there unmolested for eternity.

So next time that guy sitting next you is pounding fish, try to envision what the 3-d world below looks like. Is he on an edge, in a pocket, a fish super highway? It will help you understand and catch more fish.