NAIFC

Anglers Take the Ice

In the final qualifying event of the 2010 NAIFC tournament season, the ice belt’s finest anglers traveled to northern Wisconsin’s Lake Thompson-a relatively small natural lake near Rhinelander. At approximately 400 acres, Thompson offered the competitors three distinct basin sections, from the deeper, structure laden western basin to the shallow, featureless upper section. In addition to being the last chance to qualify for the December NAIFC Championship, the Lake Thompson event, held Saturday, February 21, also offered anglers one more chance to achieve Team of the Year honors.

Going in, most of the anglers realized that plucking limits of both bluegills and crappies would require time spent in two divergent habitats. Like many Wisconsin lakes and flowages, Thompson’s bottom has over the years been augmented by countless sunken cribs-artificial wood and brush structures that create cover for bluegills, bass and other fish. Although many anglers knew that bluegill schools were holding amongst these artificial reefs, few knew precisely where the larger specimens were positioned within each crib.

While occasionally present on the cribs as well, most of the black crappies wandered in small groups above 25 to 30 foot basin sections, or holes within an otherwise flat bottom. Many of the teams found fish by drilling countless holes and sonar metering over these deeper areas. Staying on crappies, however, proved the real challenge, as schools remained on a perpetual pattern of movement. A recurrent theme found anglers catching one or two fish before the school would vanish. By day’s end, some of the successful teams simply drilled more holes, sorting through larger numbers of crappies to find eight large weigh fish.

Among these teams were brothers Bob and Neil Jacobson, from Hatley, Wisconsin. Prior to a single practice day the Saturday before the tournament, the duo had never fished Thompson, which lies just an hour north of their homes. Nonetheless, the Jacobsons managed to craft a keen fish-catching plan. “We really didn’t do a lot of prefishing,” said Neil. “We go a hold of the best lakemap we could find, then just started to cover water. Our gameplan was to get our ‘gills first, then chase crappies.”

Like a lot of the top teams on the NAIFC, the Jacobsons relied on a MarCum underwater camera when setting out to identify fish location. “We started looking at several specific fish cribs, and the MarCum 825 revealed a key clue that probably won the tournament for us. There were bluegills all around the cribs, but most of them were small. We dropped the lens into the middle of the crib, and saw some larger fish lying right on bottom, tight to the mess of wood and brush.”

On tournament day, the Jacobsons were the first team to reach their top spot-an eight- by eight-foot crib-and immediately positioned themselves as close to key pieces of cover as possible. “You had to fish right in among the wood, but you first had to quickly get your bait past all the smaller fish lying higher up in the water column. Our MarCum LX-3 flashers also helped our cause in that we were able to separate fish from bottom, as well as our jigs from the tangle of cover where the bigger ‘gills were living. We lost quite a few jigs to snags, but it was absolutely necessary, because if you weren’t occasionally hanging up, your bait wasn’t near the larger fish.”

While Neil used a small jig and plastic combination, brother Bob opted for a jig tipped with a single live maggot. Color, the team found, wasn’t a major factor, although they both settled on chartreuse horizontal jigs, such as a Fiskas Wolfram or Northland Mud Bug. Neil added a single white Little Atom Nuggie tail. “The bigger ‘gills weren’t super aggressive,” Jacobson reported. “You had to really work on each fish to get him to bite.”

Upon landing their eighth respectable bluegill, the brothers decided to start chasing crappies. “We moved to the openwater, where we started ‘trolling.’ Bob drilled, while I followed with the LX-3, checking for the presence of suspended fish. We found that the bigger crappies were higher in the water column, as much as 15 feet above bottom over the 24-foot basin. When I’d mark a few fish, I’d signal to Bob, and we’d start fishing. It was a lot of work, because the fish were always moving, and you had to move with them. We also switched to a slightly heavier Fiskas jig.” Tungsten, a lead alternative, is twice as heavy as lead, and allowed the team to get their baits in front of moving crappies fast-another important refinement that helped spell eventual success.

Keeping on the move proved a wise idea, for hot on their heels were the perennially hot team of Jim Kusuda and Terry Rogers. Like the Jacobsons, Kusuda and Rogers used an underwater camera to scout certain key fish cribs. “Some friends of ours have used a Humminbird Side Imaging sonar to identify a bunch of the better cribs on Thompson,” stated Kusuda. “We help them out with spots and fishing information, and they often return the favor. On our best crib, Terry moved the lens to the center of the crib and spotted some nice ‘gills there. It was a clear bottom sort of in the corner of the middle of the crib.”

Kusuda and Rogers used Fiskas jigs dressed with maggots. Their key bluegill bait was a #3 gold Fiskas jig with a gold bead and one “spike” (maggot.) “We’d drop the jig to the bottom, and slowly work it up from there, attempting to entice a bite from one of these larger ‘gills. We lost quite a few jigs in the cribs, but we also caught a lot of fish-sorting out the smaller ‘gills to get to our eight heaviest.” To expedite the sorting process, Kusuda used a gram scale to filter out smaller fish by fractions of a pound.

After spending the first 2 hours on their crib spot, the team started walking through previously drilled holes in the 22-foot basin, scanning for crappies with their sonar units. “In an hour and a half we caught a bunch of crappies, but few keepers. We then recalled seeing a bunch of locals set up on a different spot five minutes away. We headed over to this point, moved off into deeper water nearby, and immediately got into nicer fish.”

Kusuda began the crappie parade with a slightly heavier 5mm Fiskas jig dressed with a “bubble gum” colored Little Atom Micro Nuggie. “I showed Terry my jig, and he put on a pink colored plastic, which is slightly different than bubble gum, but started catching fish too.”

Short on time and a few more weigh-fish, Kusuda began putting crappies on his scale, finally icing and weighing their two largest crappies in the final 20-minutes of the day.

At the weigh-in many anglers acknowledged the lake’s abundant bluegill population, while also noting difficulties locating and catching the larger individuals. Likewise with crappies, fish schools were quickly evident throughout the basin, although finding fish above 10-inches proved a challenge. Clearly, though, most had enjoyed a great day on the ice-beautiful weather and cooperative fish amid a structure-rich body of water.

Nearly all the teams who found the larger bluegills relied on MarCum underwater cameras to identify their position close to bottom, within the crib structure itself. Others, such as notable angler Tony Boshold, used his MarCum 380 in the down-view mode to determine the precise position to drill a hole.  Small openings in each crib allowed for a jig to be slipped through the wood to bottom, where the big ‘gills awaited. Down-viewing also let Boshold and others monitor fish response to their presentation.

The eventual winners, Bob and Neil Jacobson, who weighed 16 fish for 4.43-pounds, credited their underwater camera, as well. Second place went to Jim Kusuda and Terry Rogers, who iced another of the 29 sixteen fish limits, and weighed 4.17-pounds.

Yet to be determined was the coveted Team of the Year title. Following high finishes at Richmond Lake, SD (3^rd), Little Wissota, WI (7^th), Hamlin, MI (4^th), and Delavan, WI (6^th), IceMen Jacek Gawlinski and Zbigniew Wojcik ultimately held off hard-charging Jim Kusuda and Terry Rogers, for a final 65 points and Team of the Year. You can read about this dynamic angling team in future NAIFC news releases. On December 18, 2010 the NAIFC’s top 75 teams gather for the Championship, right back in Rhinelander, Wisconsin on a lake that’s yet to be announced. Stay tuned ice fans.