Marcum Showdown Ice Troller

[Jim Uran]

March is here, my favorite month of the ice fishing season. The days get longer and longer as the month progresses, the snow melts and makes traveling and finding fish more enjoyable. The temperature rises, the oxygen starts to replenish, and the fish start to snap out of their mid-winter doldrums. The out of the way lakes are easier to get to, fishing opportunities multiply and every year I add a lake or two to the list of my favorite lakes.

Sometimes it’s nice to join the masses and fish the local hot spot, but sometimes people get caught up on catching fish and they forget about chasing fish, which I think is half the fun. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to just pull up on a known community honey hole, drill a few holes and get on some fish. But it’s not nearly as satisfying as getting out on your own and putting some time and energy into finding your own spot.

These are some of tools and tricks I use when I’m out searching for March crappies. First off, if I’m out on a new lake I need to know what kind of areas I want to target so having a lake map, or a GPS is critical. I look for some of the deeper holes in the lake, preferably the larger flatter holes with soft bottoms. Most of the lakes I fish have pretty decent size holes in them and typically around my area they top out in the mid 20’s to maybe the mid 30 foot range. Then I narrow it down even farther by finding those larger holes adjacent to large shallow flats and weed beds. These large weed beds are where the fish hide out during the day, and then they scoot off over the deeper holes at dusk.

I don’t fish too much during mid-day, I work during the day so I like to catch them as they are cruising out of their daytime hiding spots and out over the deeper flats. First thing I do is I find the deep hole, and drill a line of holes until I reach hard bottom, and/or the start of the weed bed, and then I’ll drill some holes paralleling the drop because I like following them along a certain depth as the school roams back and forth.

This year I got a new tool that makes this job a lot easier, way easier. Gone are the days of me dragging the big flasher along while I’m drilling holes, or drilling a line of holes, going back to the truck and grabbing the flasher and retracing my steps. The Marcum Showdown Ice Troller is an awesome tool for searching out the right structure! All I do is put the lanyard around my neck, or wrap it around my hand, power it up, tuck the transducer in my pocket while I’m drilling, when I’m done drilling I drop the transducer in the hole. The read out is instant, no depth selection buttons, it automatically sets the depth range and it has an easy to read digital read out of the depth at the bottom of the screen and it’s as light as a feather. If I don’t like what I see I just keep repeating the process until I find what I’m looking for.

This is exactly the scenario that played out last night. It’s been years since I fished this lake but with little to no pressure out there this year it was worth a try, right? I found a hole that was 21 feet deep and it was a pretty big hole off of a shoreline drop and it extended out to a massive mid-lake bar. I found the hole and drilled and checked some holes along the way with the Ice Troller until I hit the 14 foot mark. I backed back down the drop until I hit the 18 foot mark and started marking fish instantly on the showdown.

I dropped my jig down tipped with a waxie and started pulling in ‘gils for 45 minutes straight, it was an ice anglers dream. As fast as I could get it down there they were just pounding the jig. The average size was respectable, with a lot of 7” fish and the biggest being around 9” or so.

I knew the crappies were going to start in next so I drilled another hole for a second line and dropped the Wild 3 fish house out of the back of the truck and hunkered down. I like to have one float line and one jigging line, I typically use waxies or plastics on my jigging rod and minnows on my float line. At 5:45 my float started doing the dance, and then the typical pop, and the slow descent. I set the hook and up come the hole a nice 11” crappie, and then another, and another and another… The fishing was lights out until 6:30 and the fish moved on. I could have pursued but I had my limit and already released my fair share for the night so I packed up and headed home a happy man. I haven’t had a night like that for some time, when you can catch dozens of nice fish in a night, on a new spot, on a new lake, that’s what gets my blood flowing.

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[DTro]

I know it's cliche'.....but seriously, does it get any better than that?