Do you fish the same spot year after year, found during Soft water conditions or just random spot.

Deep water or shallow?

No different from summer: you have to find 'em. They feed less often, but when they do, they often move shallower to do so. Fish found deep are often semi-dormant - but also can simply be in the warmest water available and active.

Now let me ask a question out of ignorance, What the hell is this hard water-soft water bull [bleep]? powdr

hard water is the kind that Jesus (and me) walk on.



You cut or drill a hole in the hard layer so you can get to the fish.

old school.




sometimes we slide a little shack over the top of the hole.



turn on the heater...



shut the doors and windows, make it dark so you can see down the hole.




You trick a fish into coming within range, use a decoy.

Then you throw the spear.

tie a rope to the F'ing spear so you don't lose it. Don't want to lose it, cause your dad made it.

Then you pull that [bleep] in...



how




about



That!



looks like supper on a stick.



Now we just have to decide, we gonna fry it or bake it?

Nice northern on a stick Dave. We were all set to go spear chucking last weekend when we were suddenly afflicted with the dreaded GC (Golden Corral) food poisoning, damn mother in law and her eating places. Maybe this weekend.

Dave:

If you get tired of filleting those pike, consider smoking them and then canning the smoked fish. Awesome stuff, and a great way to deal with small pike that are a pain to fillet the y bones out. . Course I am biased - we are allowed 9 pike under 22" on our lake, so we have an abundance of the damn tackle busters.

fp

Now Dave, that's the kind of answer I was looking for. Stay outta that shack and get that Ford finished. powdr

I've got a 66 chevy to turn out first, then I will turn focus to the 69 Mach 1, at least through body/primer stages, might as well paint the F'ing thing too I guess. lol. Then a 58 plymouth "christine".

so on and so forth, for ever and ever, lol.

For water to freeze, the lake must turn over. The water wll get colder and denser until it gets to 39.5 degrees. After that it gets less dense. That's why ice forms on the top of the water, and not the bottom of the lake. Depending on the depth of the water and the amount of cold air available to cool the lake down, that most assuredly affect where you find the fish and when you find them there. They move with the temperature changes, just like they do in the summer.

Even here where it can get very, very cold and stay that way for a very long time though the water below about 8 feet will usually stay about 39.5 and you will likely have active fish there.

Deep water in summer in a lot of inland lakes usually has less O2 than shallower water and because of the turnover when the surface water gets cold and sinks to the bottom you can find fish in deep water taking advantage of a previously "unavailable" food source, and they can be very active.