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Find The Other Anglers and Find The Fish?
by Turk Gierke

Sometimes it appears that there is a mysterious force that hypnotizes anglers and forms them into tight packs. This hypnosis has a magnetic effect on many fishermen. From all parts of the lake they are drawn into tight groups of boats or ice houses. This force is especially evident when ice fishing, but applies to open water just the same.

This force begins with a thought process that if two boats are close to each other “they must be on fish”, and if there are three or four, “it’s a hot spot!” It also stems from not having enough good places to fish during a particular time of year.

I’m not sure if fishermen enjoy just watching others go fishless, thinking “hey I didn’t do to bad, that guy got skunked too,” or maybe they are too social to just break away from the pack, and go find potential hot spots.

Conventional fishing rhetoric says that 10% of the fisherman catch 90% of the fish. I believe it. I also believe 90% of the anglers’ fish the same spots, with 90% of the anglers on the water that day. The majority of my best days guiding - times when the poles where bent all day long - walleye after walleye – were days when we caught walleyes away from the packs. Many of these trips also happened during “off” bites, as reported by other anglers.

There is a river rat that I have become acquainted with that only fishes Minnesota’s and Wisconsin’s border water- the St. Croix River - and only during the ice season. This ice crusted jigger pounds big walleyes, and he’s caught more ice hogs out of that water than anyone I know, including an eleven pound eye last winter.

When he starts talking about what’s what on the ice-I listen. In summary he says fish alone, away from other anglers, have your spots picked out ahead of time, and fish it only if nobody is fishing it. “Once another line is down there, it’s over.” Now that may be a bit extreme, however it often rings true.

There are times when open water anglers or groups of ice anglers catch fish together, but day in and day out, fishing away from the noisy fish spooking pack will catch you more fish, especially on the ice. When I’m guiding on a particular stretch of water, I have numerous hot spots in a given one or two mile area. If someone is at one of “my” honey holes, I move to the next spot-again fish can be caught next to others, but when adding it up over the length of a season, more fish are caught lone wolf style.

Many times these “packed” anglers are fishing memories, and working the same spot as last trip regardless of the conditions. Fishing is fun, and it’s supposed to be, some places are fun to fish even if you get blanked, but the fun of hooking water only lasts so long, and doing it next to the guy that “won’t wave back” gets old real quick.

Repel the force that can draw us all into the tight groups of anglers. Even if some fish are being caught on structure, odds are if you find the same structure somewhere else on the water, fish will be there and all yours for the catching.

Red Pine Resort
Ice Fishing on Kabetogama.