IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! => Northern Pike => Topic started by: esox_xtm on Jan 25, 2019, 06:00 PM
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So... Dead bait in WI has become increasingly more difficult to come by. First the smelt petered out to be replaced with bloater chubs. Not a bad swap and I always did very well on the chubs. Now they're pretty much toast and quality deads that are preserved to WIDNR standards are $18 a dozen. Obnoxious! I usta be able to buy chubs by the pound for a buck and a half, you'd get five or six usually.
Last week on the way home I called my usual vendor on Lake Michigan and asked if they had any bloaters in the round for bait. Sure, the kid said, we got 'em. A 90 minute detour later I arrive and discover the FNG had no clue and they had nothing. NO THING! <sigh>. A short discussion with the owner/operator revealed he'd just put a few hundred pounds of Lake Superior herring in the brine tank. No flavor, just salt pre-flavoring and smoking. Perfect! I asked if I could pick out some smaller ones and Mark said sure. He gave me a big plastic scoop to stir the pot and I picked thru the stuff for a dozen of the smallest. Bear in mind these were gutted but head on so not too bad.
Checked out with a coupla hunks of their smoked salmon and got charged a whopping $3 for the herring. Nice!
So today, after they sat in a tub of solar salt (to toughen them up a bit) for a few days I went to work. I thought about how I might be able to round them out and decided since folks catch pike on hot dogs (me too!) that would probably work. Got the dogs and some heavy sewing thread and went to work...
(https://i.postimg.cc/vHJdCgj0/FRANKENBAIT-1.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
All sewn up...
(https://i.postimg.cc/JhmCzwRJ/FRANKENBAIT-2.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
Note the sutures on the belly. Hah! You can almost see it...
Ready to rock n roll!
(https://i.postimg.cc/wT0wsS5L/FRANKENBAIT-3.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
I'll continue to process in accordance with WI regs and can't wait to dangle them in the cisco filled pike pool I'll be fishing in a coupla weeks.
Life is good and necessity is the Mother... :tipup: :tipup: :tipup: ;)2
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I look forward to seeing how you make out with this bait.
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Love the movie reference!
Best of luck, I hope you’re rewarded for your efforts!
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You’re definitely going to get a 40.
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Love the movie reference!
Best of luck, I hope you’re rewarded for your efforts!
Pop quiz... Which movie reference? You can find two. Both favorites for me.
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Pop quiz... Which movie reference? You can find two. Both favorites for me.
History of the World, Part I
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Pop quiz... Which movie reference? You can find two. Both favorites for me.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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I’m not dead yet....
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Swung one yesterday and I'm drowning another right now. Pretty small lake loaded with pike. Thinking I might be able to coax the Godfather... Two weeks I'll be on the right water ;)2
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The return of Doctor Frankenfurter (another movie reference). Let's hope that's where the resemblance ends. It's well known that pike target their food through sight but they seem
also to be scavengers. How much do they rely on scent to locate a meal? Many years ago I earned my stripes (and nickname) with some vile catfish stink bait preparations, just
horrible stuff that could knock a raccoon off it's feet. Several recipes called for hotdogs as the vehicle for the putrid marinade. Now I'm wondering if some of those recipes could
entice a discriminating Nothhern perhaps presented as deadbait stuffing as Esox has done.
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The return of Doctor Frankenfurter (another movie reference). Let's hope that's where the resemblance ends.
Rocky Horror... Oh yeah. I am a Renaissance Man. ;)2
Hmmmm, dead bait in drag. I gotta think on that.
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Do you think they would work better with the eyes in them or doesn't it matter.
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Oh the eyes are there coach, just slightly dehydrated from the first step of processing. In the end I don't think it matters. I've fished deads with one eye hanging out, guts comin' out, most of the fins broke off. Still caught fish.