NAIFC

Crescent Lake Wood Winners

The North American Ice Fishing held the second tournament of the 2009 season on Crescent Lake near Rhinelander, Wisconsin.  Crescent Lake is a diverse fishery with strong panfish, smallmouth bass, walleye and musky populations.  Anglers were allowed to weigh eight bluegills and eight perch during the event held January 11th.  Crescent Lake offered these traveling ice pros a unique element because of the number of submerged fish cribs that were located in the lake.  As many anglers found, these cribs were crucial for locating bluegills in this system.

Myron Gilbert and Joe Pikulski continued their incredible record.  After winning last years NAIFC Team of the Year and winning this past season’s Championship on Boom Lake also located near Rhinelander, this team from Michigan placed third on Minnesota’s Lake Osakis held on January 4th before winning the Crescent Lake event.  Again, this team is poised for the NAIFC Team of the Year.

The weekend of the tournament, extreme cold front conditions greeted the competitors.  From extensive pre-fishing, this team soon realized that the fish cribs would be the key to finding the bluegills needed to win.  The team spent a considerable amount of time locating cribs that weren’t already drilled out by other competitors.  Another key to their strategy was finding and fishing the other sides of cribs that did see pressure.  “Many of the cribs were located and fished by several of the teams but some of the cribs only saw pressure on one side of the crib so we were able to catch a few more fish by drilling more holes and finding the other side of the crib,” explained Myron Gilbert.

The anglers also noted that the shallow cribs in less than ten feet of water held few fish while the deeper cribs in fifteen to twenty foot of water seemed most productive.  “If the crib was located on some type of structure, the crib was that much better.  The best cribs were located on the ends of points, saddles and humps,” stressed Gilbert

Joe Pikulski adds, “the musky and bass really kept the bluegills tight into the cribs and I imagine the front had the fish down as well but the window where these fish would come out to eat a jig was less than a foot, you had to get right on top of the fish.”  Both anglers commented that holes were often drilled within four inches of each other to thoroughly cover and dissect these cribs.  “The fish really wanted the bait to rock slowly down and wouldn’t hit if the motion was moving up or sporadic,” explained Pikulski.  Both anglers relied on Fiskas in yellow or orange tipped with wax worms.  The motion was critical to entice these fish out of the crevices and these anglers avoided using traditional spinning reels in favor of plastic Schooley Reels that eliminated line twist for a more natural presentation.  Both anglers used Jason Mitchell Elite Series Rods, favoring the short compact 17 inch sight fishing design that enabled the manipulation of the jig to be very precise.  “I have had two rods taken from me after the past two tournaments right off my atv during the weigh ins,” Myron laughed adding, “I suppose people want to know what we are using.”  Both anglers added that the time pre-fishing had showed them that these fish cribs often didn’t hold numbers of fish but the fish were the right fish.

“During pre-fishing, we would often only see about four or five fish on the camera so the guys who sat on their fish before the tournament catching those fish were at a real disadvantage,” added Myron.

Gilbert and Pikulski made a point each day to get their bluegills first, right away in the morning and focused on perch during the middle of the day.  Both anglers noticed that they were able to catch bigger perch and trigger more aggressive bites by using gold.  The team used a system to encourage more aggressive behavior from the perch by fishing right next to each other once fish were found by letting one angler hold a fighting fish on the end of the line before reeling up while the other angler planted a jig right next to the fighting fish.  “This seems to often prolong a perch bite and gets the school more aggressive, not to mention keeps the fish from leaving,” stressed Pikulski.

The winning pair targeted the perch on the edge of a deep basin that rose up to form a corner pocket that seemed to funnel schools of perch as they moved up and down the basin.  “Ten foot of water seemed to be the magical depth for the perch we found during and before the tournament,” added Gilbert.

The next stop for the NAIFC will be on January 18th on Lake Byllesby located in central Minnesota.  These events coincide with free seminars and kids fishing events.  “We are getting many first time anglers participating in these events, explained tournament director Mike McNett, and some of these local anglers are doing real well when they fish their home water.  These events are also very educational for anglers wishing to learn cutting edge ice fishing tactics and strategies”  More information on the NAIFC can be found online at: www.naifc.com.