I have been out fished before, but never like this! And not two times in a row.
Last year I was fishing with my good friend Phil Schwiek from Hooksetters guide service. It was my last weekend for ice fishing and he wanted to show me one of “his” spots for crappies. He had brought along a client, Steve.
We were fishing a flowage, on a 15 foot flat that dropped off to a 25-30 foot channel. I set up my Frabill two man shelter and fired up my trusty heater. I was soon warm and cozy, jigging out of one hole with my favorite jig and waxie. I had a crappie minnow under a perfectly weighted ice buster bobber in my other hole inside the shack. Outside I had a rattle reel set with another crappie minnow.
The bite was good and after 1 ½ hours I had caught 3 crappies jigging, 2 on my bobber inside the shack and 1 on my rattle reel outside. I had missed 6 other bites. It slowed up a bit and I went outside to check on Phil.
Phil and Steve were both on there way to a tip down and both produced nice crappies. After a little looking around I noted a nice pile of fish near their 4 wheelers. 35 to be exact and with the last two they had just caught, they had 37 to my 6. I am usually out fished by Phil, but not 2 times in a row and not by this much. He came over and said, “Mike, get yourself some tip downs!”
I have a hard time with change, Phil had been working on me for 2 years to try using tip downs for crappies, perch and even walleye. But I hadn’t. Phil explained to me that I was fishing a 10x10 area with my 3 holes. With 6 tip downs, Steve and Phil were covering a 75x75 foot area. “Imagine how many more fish are available to us compared to you,” he said. “Sure jigging is fun, but you can miss fish when they feel you.”
He is right. Bobbers cause constant resistance, and light biting fish will spit out the bait. The tension on a tip down is set so the fish only feels a mild resistance, and the resistance is only for a moment until the rod tip falls down. This creates slack line and no resistance. You simply walk over to the tip down lightly lift the rod and reel in the fish.
After watching 2 more tip downs “tip down” and 2 more crappies come up, my mind was made up!
I crawled back into my comfortable shelter and tried with no avail to put a mess of crappies on the ice. As I drove home with my 7 crappies (they limited out prior to me leaving) I vowed I would be ready for next year. I bought 3 of the last remaining tip downs I could find a few weeks later.
Like I said…