It's the Terrible at Fishing Radio show on Cold Country Radio.
Here's your fishing expert and host, Michael Rafino.
Welcome back to Terrible at Fishing Everybody.
Well, it's been a crazy, snowy week.
Crazy falling power outages, tons of snow.
We are talking feet of snow.
So let's talk about fishing in the snow.
So Gerber Lake has good ice right now, but you're going to need a snowmobile to get there.
When you go ice fishing, you're going to need a snow shovel.
Do not forget to put a snow shovel on your sled because you're going to have to clear
out that snow to get to the ice before you start drilling.
So real important, we have great ice right now everywhere.
We got it at Fish Lake.
We got it at Lake of the Woods.
We've got it at Four Mile Lake, which again, snowmobile.
You have Diamond Lake.
We have so many, so we have a great season for ice fishing.
And Lake of the Woods will be throwing their free tight festival on the 14th, which is
nice that weekend.
And then of course, I will be cosponsoring the free ice fishing derby at Lake of the
Woods, which I will give away lots of prizes.
You will see me.
It's just a lot of fun.
So bring a chair, bring a rod, and have a good time on the 22nd on the ice fishing derby.
So really some great stuff coming up.
We just got a lot of snow right now, and I hope everybody's safe.
And I know tree limbs are falling all over the place, including my house and stuff.
I mean, part of my backyard is kind of damaged because of the tree, but it can happen to
all of us, and I'm sure it is.
So shake the trees, try to get that snow out, and try to get your snowblower out.
If you got one, great for you.
Although the electric ones are not lasting very long.
So hopefully you got a gas-powered snowblower.
But we're having a...
It's exciting this time of year.
So this...
I mean, I want to talk a little bit about the ice fishing fish finders.
All right?
Now a fish finder normally has a beautiful screen on it and stuff during the summer.
You got little waves and this and that, and it shows you the contours of the bottom, which
is very important.
Ice fish finders are very, very, very, very different and almost archaic in the way they
look.
And ice fish finder is a circle with annoyingly flashing red and green and yellow lights.
I mean, it's just flash flash flashers.
In fact, it's appropriately named a flasher.
And you know, people ask me because I have a Markham fish finder and they ask me how
much they cost and stuff like that.
And Markham is one of two fish finders on the market that make...
I mean, two main brands.
And so we...
There we go.
I'm pulling it up.
So flashers are circular.
They give you bottom read and extremely sensitive.
In fact, they can even see, you know, like a split shot, you know, or a tiny, tiny, tiny,
tiny little jig.
So there are two companies mostly that make these Vexlar and work.
And do you have to spend a lot of money on these?
No, you just don't.
I mean, mine's an M1, which is about 330 bucks.
And the Vexlar's FL8, that is 350.
So they're right about the same amount of money.
There are other companies like Common Bird and other companies that make these, but Vexlar
and Markham are actually the main two.
You have these.
These are all in, in compassing cases.
They're small.
They, they have a nylon bag around them.
They come with a 12 volt battery, which you're going to want to upgrade.
You know, it's not like it doesn't last long enough on the day.
It just doesn't last long enough in the years.
And so what I did do is I purchased a, a lithium ion 12 volt battery, small one.
It's about a pound lighter, but it's just, it just does better job.
And so they don't cost much like 30 bucks for an extra battery.
So these particular flashers, what they do is it shows you with red on the bottom.
And then, and you drop your transducer.
It's got a little arm that swings out.
You drop your transducer just below your ice shelf.
Drink your coffee.
And it has a conical display, you know, conical display where, you know, it actually senses
and it goes, it will see even particulates.
That's how sensitive a flasher is.
It will see particulates in the water.
And so you actually will adjust the gain in order to reduce the amount of particulates,
but still able to see your jig.
So you're going to drop your jig down and you're going to adjust your gain to where
you can see your jig, but try not and eliminate as much of the particulates as you can.
Because I mean, even a blade of grass that sets free from the bottom will come up and
it will actually see it.
That's why it's such an important feature.
And a regular, let's say you have a regular fish finder, you want to put this on your
A like an Apple A Scope and it does very, very similar.
It just looks straight down and you're able to see things much better.
So that's something that you can use.
And I did.
And I used a Garmin Striker 4 on A Scope.
It also has a flasher mode, although I enjoyed the A Scope more.
And then a Striker 4 portable kit like the Markham or something, if you want to save
about 150 bucks and you could go there.
It's under 200 bucks on Amazon so you could get, grab a Striker 4 portable kit, which
you can use on your kayak and stuff like that.
So it actually works very, very well.
But if you want just a good down scope, then you're going to probably end up going with
a Markham or a Vexlar.
Adjust that gain to where it's just going to see what you want it to see, which is your
bait and the bottom.
Now you're going to get some days, you know, there's currents underneath in the lakes.
So you're going to get those particulates, but you know, they're not going to be red.
They're going to be green.
They're going to be flashy.
They'll move in and out, whatnot.
Or just, you know, could be bubbles or could be part of your bait that breaks off on your
hook.
Believe it or not, this thing can see it.
And that's the fun part about using a flashing system.
Now like I said, it is rather archic looking, but it's effective and that's what you want.
I can drop this all, you know, in any hole and probably get you a fish in a few minutes.
It's one of the most fun things to do when ice fishing is using a fish finder.
Much more fun than open water fishing in the summer.
Most of the time I'm just there, it's just there because it's pretty nowadays because
I know my lake pretty well.
And if I see a school or something like that, I'll stop my boat.
But the, I mean, to be honest, there is nothing fun, more fun than watching your bait descend.
And it descends really, I mean, please, and we'll talk about this in the next segment
about what to put on your line because this is, it's real important to let the bait fall
naturally and your, your fish finder is going to watch it.
And it's going to drive you nuts because I use 1 1 0 1 0.
I know, I probably don't exceed 1 1 0 1 0.
So it literally, it does sink, it just floats down, it's kind of swims down.
And as it swims down, it creates a very, very good presentation.
And then on my fish finder, I can see that the red, it tells me how deep it is.
And what you're going to see is your bait will be red and it will be going down.
What you're going to see is another red flash.
That red flash is going to be a fish.
And as this falls down, you're going to see a red flash appear between the bottom and
your bait.
This is real, really cool.
This is exciting.
Okay.
Just let the bait continue to fall.
Okay.
And let it fall until that either that red flash that appears hits it.
And you can see it because it'll merge with your red dot, your bait.
And it'll merge.
And at that point, you can kind of, you can stop your, your descent and wait for that
little itty bitty and it's a tiny, bitty, bitty little nibble.
But don't set it hard.
Please don't set it hard.
Just lift up, you know, on your rod and start reeling.
Now the ice is thick.
Okay.
Ice is thick.
And I lose a lot of fish on the bottom lip of my hole.
All right.
You know, when you, when you drill that hole, it's about, you know, 12, 15 inches deep.
So it's a tube.
And at the bottom is this lip.
And so you can see the fish, you know, through the hole.
And if it's a big fish, you really need to keep the line tight and tire it out.
All right.
So a lot of times, because I use very light line for a bound test, really light one.
I dip, I actually put my tip of my rod into the hole so I can, I don't, you know, no
abrasion on my line.
And I can tire out the fish by just keeping the line tight, letting it take the drag,
you know, and just tire it out and enough to where I can get my rod tip back up above
the hole.
And this is where your towel comes in handy because you're going to put your arm in the
hole and you're going to, if it's a big fish anyway, you're going to put your fingers into
its gill.
If it's a toothed fish and then pull it out of the hole.
And that is how you're going to land a big fish through the ice.
The problem about keeping your tip above the hole, which you're going to do when the ice
is really, really thick, which we did a couple of years ago because it's 36 inches thick.
We are poles, our rods are not 36 inches.
So we had to, we had to, we had to clip off a lot of our line.
So what ends up happening is if you keep your rod tip above the hole, that lower, that lower
part of the lip will start to be abrasive against your line and it'll weaken it.
So you're going to have to re set your tackle on a regular basis if you keep your line above
the hole.
So that we're going to go into the next segment and we're going to talk about what to put
on the line and what not to put on your line.
So stay tuned after these messages.
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Gold Country Radio on Friday night, terrible at fishing, but it feels just right.
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Welcome back to Terrible at Fishing.
So this is an, you know, we're doing a new format on my show and it's going to be, you
know, it's a half hour long.
It's at a whole hour, you know, I didn't know if you guys were getting tired of me or not,
but I try to keep it interesting and practical and informative.
So now we're going to talk about what to put on your fishing rod for ice fishing.
Now it's real important to do, you know, to do a few things.
One of it is choosing your line.
All right.
Choosing your line is real important.
Now I like using fluorocarbon.
Fluorocarbon line completely is invisible in water.
It has the same refractive properties as the water.
Ice fishing water is clear.
It's really clear.
I mean, it's got 14 feet of clarity, you know, visibility in the water.
If you were diving, you could see 14 feet in front of you.
It's just that clear.
So it's important to have a line that the fish cannot suspect and see and scare them
away.
So fluorocarbon or a fluorocoded line is important.
Now another reason why fluorocarbon is important is that it has very little stretch to it.
Now monofilament, which is the most affordable line on the market, it has a lot of stretch
to it.
One thing about, and I've said it in the first segment and every other segment, ice
fishing is very, very, very, very finesse.
Those bites come very, very light.
The fish are lethargic in cold water.
They're still hungry, but they're just not aggressive.
So they're not, it's not going to take your hook and start running.
It's just not.
They're just going to be nibbling and you're going to have to look at the tip and just
keep an eye on it.
If you have a stretchy line, the fish has more options to spit it out.
Slack can be created and they can spit it out.
If you have a tight, you know, a line that doesn't stretch, the, when you set the hook,
the odds of you landing it is much, much greater.
So two good reasons to go with fluorocarbon.
It doesn't stretch and it's invisible in water.
Yes, it costs more money, but you will land more fish, a lot more fish.
I use fluorocarbon on every lure that I have, even in the summer fishing.
I just use it as a leader on my bigger stuff.
So I just, you know, I might use braid and then fluorocarbon as a leader, but ice fishing,
I use pure fluorocarbon.
You're really only dropping your line about 20 feet.
So it's really what you're working on.
Now the weight of it, two or four pounds.
Now the reason, the lighter, the better.
The reason the lighter, the better is that you're using really, really, really light
jigs and heavy line will not feed the drop.
It won't do it naturally.
You would have to just start hand feeding it and hope, and then it will actually have
a curl to it.
It drives you nuts really.
So I use, you know, four pound, but you can use two pound.
Now you may ask yourself, can you catch a five pound fish with two or four pound?
The answer is absolutely yes.
Yes, yes.
The pound of the line does not dictate the size of the fish, but it does dictate the
play that you have to do in order to land a big fish.
Does that make sense?
So if I use four pound test, which I do, and I hook an eight pound fish, which you can
easily do.
I have to let it run longer and play it longer to tire it out, because you get it to the
ice, you know, to the hole in order to pull it up with my arm.
Okay.
I'm not going to pull it up through the hole on, on line because my line's only four pounds
and it's eight pounds.
My line will break.
So I'm going to get my arm wet, which I get my arm wet a lot.
I always have a nice big dry towel with me.
I'm very important to bring a towel or lots of reasons, but you know, why, you know, drying
your hands after you handle your bait and your fish and stuff like that, de-hooking
it.
So you can land any size fish with four pound test, any size.
I mean, it's in a lake.
I mean, if you get a 20 pounder, harder, but definitely doable.
I mean, you could do it now.
I don't know what's in the lake.
That's 20 pounds.
But let's say, you know, you hook Moby Dick.
Okay.
It's just going to take a couple hours to do what, you know, wear out, you know, Moby
Dick.
What a fun video that is.
We don't have sturgeons in Lake of the Woods, but you did.
Oh my goodness.
So that would be, I mean, that'd just be a lot of fun.
You don't think you can get it through the hole though.
You'd be bringing a, you know, your, you know, your buddy's going to be drilling more holes
next to yours in order to get it through the hole.
You know, it's amazing too.
In eight inch holes, actually six or eight inch hole is, is plenty big.
That's a big girth.
Okay.
Of a fish.
So don't worry about the hole size either.
So your line should be settled, right?
It should be.
I mean, that's, that's, and this is, it's, and then if you'd keep your tip above the
hole, like I did said in the last segment, you're going to have abrasion and fluorocarbon
is more abrasive, you know, tolerant, but you're going to, you know, if indeed you have
that big fish and you, you had, you had to fight it under the hole and that line was
rubbing against that bottom lip.
You're going to, after you land the fish, you're going to cut the line.
You're going to resect your, your jig because now you've got a weak spot.
So just cut your line and retie it on your jig.
No big deal, right?
You just had the fight of your life and you landed a butte.
So, and then hopefully, you know, put it back in the lake and reset and get another or,
you know, him again.
I don't know.
I don't think I've ever caught a fish twice in a row, the same fish.
Maybe I did.
Probably I did.
I've catched a lot of fish.
It's not like they all have names and, you know, ID tags on it.
Now what to put on the line.
This is real important.
Now, light line, light jig.
All right.
Don't worry about the hook size because these hooks are tiny.
These are 18s, you know, tiny little hooks.
The bigger the number, the smaller the hook.
These are tiny little hooks and believe me, they will stay in their mouth.
So this is the, this is an important part of today's broadcast.
Four pound fluorocarbon and you're dealing with a one sixty fourth of an ounce or lighter.
Now, I've only seen mule fishing make one eightieth of an ounce.
If you go to mulefishing.com or whatever it is, he makes a one eightieth.
One of the most effective jig I've ever used.
So but you don't want to go heavier than one sixty fourth of an ounce.
You want to stay as light as you can.
I mean, one thirty two, maybe that's pretty heavy, believe it or not for ice fishing, but
I would never go above one thirty two ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.
All right.
You're not going to add more weight to this.
You will not add more weight to this.
So when you ice fish, you're going to use a tiny little jig.
Now there's a recipe that all lakes want.
I don't know what that recipe is all the time.
So I try different recipes.
This is color and present and profile.
So and maybe even bait.
Now, a lot of people use worms.
I'm not a big worm guy.
In fact, I seldom ever use worms.
If you do use worms, you're going to tear off a tiny little piece.
Do not put a large piece of worm on this hook.
You'll just give the fish what they want and you'll never, you won't get what you want.
You're going to take a little tiny piece of that worm.
You're going to put it on the hook.
You want to make sure that if they attack that worm, the hook goes in them.
All right.
That's how small.
And this is small.
Now for a bait, I will, you know, you know, a dough bait.
You guys have seen me use different dough baits, you know, power bait.
I prefer the tequila sunrise power bait tequila sunrise.
This is a black and purple bait that has hard garlic sent to it.
This little, this black and purple bait is really the one I have the most success with
in any ice fishing situation.
I've tried, I've tried rainbow.
Everybody loves rainbow.
Don't get as many hits with rainbow.
I've tried red, white and blue, which is a good date, by the way, because it has blue.
And but when you, when you roll it, you kind of lose the blue color.
You're going to go with tequila sunrise.
Now, where can you get it?
I can't find it locally unless you buy it at Lake of the Woods.
Lake of the Woods is the only store I've seen that stocks regularly, the tequila sunrise
power bait.
So you can check that out.
If you're at Lake of the Woods, definitely get a jar of this and you're going to make
smaller than a pea size.
All right.
So it lasts a long time.
So you're going to just roll it in your hand and make a very small ball and put it on the
hook.
Now what color jig?
That's the recipe.
I don't know.
I typically will choose between two colors.
Chartreuse, which is a neon yellow, yellowish green or red.
Those are my two colors that I usually choose from.
So I don't know if they're going to hit red.
I don't know if they're going to hit chartreuse.
Now I have more success with red, maybe because it kind of represents blood.
So that's kind of my experience with it.
Now profile profile is sort of the shape I use.
Again, I use mule fishing.
You guys got to check them out.
It makes great baits and they last forever.
But I use what's called horse fly.
And it's a, it really is a tiny little plastic, you know, plastic has a really good profile
to it.
And I use white.
Now sometimes they want purple.
Now I like purple a lot.
I mean, remember you're using a purple power bait too.
So you don't want more, you want, you want the plastic to be as small as possible.
So when they hit it, they can get hooked.
All right.
It's really important.
So we got this, let's say a red jig.
It's 1 64th of an ounce.
We put on a little lady, baby trailer, little lady, baby trailer.
Let's say it's white.
And then we're going to put a tiny little pea size amount of tequila sunrise power
bait on that hook.
Nothing else.
Okay.
Nothing else.
Don't add a split shot to it.
Don't add any weight to it.
Nothing else.
I mean, and then let your, let it free fall down through the hole.
Watch it on your fish finder.
If you got one, if you don't have a fish finder, just wait for it.
Okay.
Suspense.
It's like watching a mystery movie and drop it down to the bottom of the lake and then
lift your tip up about 12 inches and jig it.
Just jig it really slow.
Jigs, I mean, you can lift it up and just let it fall again and then stop.
Pause.
You're going to do this one minute on one minute off, one minute on one minute off.
You will be surprised at the results you're going to get by doing it this way.
Now I know I'm running out of time here, but go to at Lake of the Woods.
You can rent shelters, sleds and augers.
Okay.
This time here, I would recommend a shelter.
Now I own a shelter, but using a shelter will keep you nice and warm, keep the whole dark
and it's a beautiful setting.
So I want to thank you guys for tuning in this week.
Please be safe out on the ice.
I would, you know, bring your snow shovel.
If you got snow shoes, great for you.
So keep you above the snow and dress warmly with a good water repellent overalls.
So we will see you guys out on the lake.
Take care.
Everybody remember February 22nd at Lake of the Woods.
That was Terrible at Fishing, the radio show with fishing expert Michael Rafino.
Check out Terrible at Fishing on YouTube and tune in next week for the next episode and
more great fishing tips.
Terrible at Fishing Fridays at 7pm on Gold Country Radio.