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Questions on Spearing


crappie jigga

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Do many people out there spear? I hardly ever see any spearing topics anymore, I absolutly love the rush ya get when they slide on in... My heart about jumps outta my throat. Anyway, just wanted to ask, what works best for all of you.. Do you like decoys, live bait, or mixing it up alittle? We have had great luck useing both... What colors do ya like to use? We like bright perch on bright days, more faded colors on cloudy days... How shallow do you go? Last year on one lake, we were in 18 inches of water with 21 inches of ice... Had great luck... We have speared in up to 10 feet of water, but I'm not a huge fan of it... It seems like there's alot better chance of a missed or wounded fish. NOT COOL!!!!
Although, if you suspend your decoy 5 feet down they will come in at that depth, if they come in below it, you have to drop your decoy closer to them becuse if you move and their looking up at the decoy they're going to see you move. Does anyone else have any tricks to try or any sugestions that might help. Thanks

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Crappie Jigga,
Great topic and great tips. I am brand new to spearing. In fact I'm buying my lic and decoys tonight and trying it out tomorrow for the first time. I have ice fished for years but never tried spearing. My Dad talked me into trying it and using his best spear. I heard its like the excitement of deer hunting, watching them move in for the kill. I can't wait. Lets keep those tips coming!
Bushwacker

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I also spear. Been doing it for the last 6 years and enjoy it more then deer hunting. Both decoys and live bait are my choice. One will seam to work better than the other, it depends on the day and what they want. My decoy choice in colors range but i like the white chartruse/orange, all white, red and white, black/white/siver, and also i like too experiment by painting them different colors. Glad to here there are more of you dy hard spearers out there

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Well people 25 years ago i speared alot, but now i live on a small lake in southern Mn and have watched the steady decline of notherns due to spearing, hard to catch and release, but we all are intitled to our own fun. But you can lure them in and watch them for awhile. Thank You, please don't send me hate mail. i love all fishing hunting and have had the same thing said to me about deer hunting, such is life.

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Denis Foyte

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Snowshoe
I agree w/ya it sucks that you can't catch and release the fish so I try to be alittle bit selective when they do come in... I had about a 6 or 7 pounder come in and I already had as much on the ice as I wanted so we sat and played alittle game of (try to catch the decoy) it went on for awhile but, he didn't get it so I feel I won that game.... It was just a blast watching him chase the decoy around.. They are so fast it's amazing that any bait fish even have a chance with a big snake after them.... Don't feel bad about expressing your opinion, that's how we all learn alittle more than we knew before.....

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Spearing is the ultimate form of catch and release. If you don't want the fish you never even have to touch it, let it swim away. If you don't want to eat the fish call it "Decoy and Observe" I guess. I have watched many fish come in and have never speared them.

Also what evidence do you have that spearing is the cause of low or little pike populations?

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What do you guys think about having the same regs as fishing? I went spearing on Zippel Bay last year and had an absolute blast. I was in 4 feet of water and seen 15, two were probably pushing 40". At noon I got out of my house to see how my dad was doing and I just got sick at the amount of large northerns hidden in the weeds, and snow that were between the 30-40" slot. (There was at least a dozen fish just in our little area!) When I got to my dad he actually had one in his hole that looked to be about a week old. There was also another guy that I talked to with the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to either get rid of the slot for spearing and lowering the limit? (or some other way) When a 35"+ comes screaming in the hole it looks like it 80" long and 3 feet wide. Most unexperienced spearers would be sure that 35 was over forty. It just seemed like a shame that all those big females were not only removed from the lake but were wasted. It is things like that, that make me worry spearing wont be around for much longer.
Just my 2 cents.

[This message has been edited by g man46 (edited 01-09-2004).]

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Hello.. I have been spearing for a few years now and I LOVE IT!! I have a question for some of you. How shallow do some of you go? I try to stay around 7 feet or so. I have heard of people in 3-4 feet. I have never speared that shallow before. But lately with my area lakes, they are really getting cloudy and hard to see. Also, what do some of you do to ensure that there is not a mess of weeds that you are setting on top of and don't notice until it is too late?? Thanks for and replies!!

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Spearing is great if you are taking small pike in populated waters, I have no problem with that at all. The problem I have with spearing is the over-harvest of very large fish. Once you catch it, you have to eat it or mount it. I have a serious problem with people who eat 20 pound plus slimers and a guy can only have so many mounted so what is the point? I realize the majority of spearers do not abuse this but the small amount that do really have a negative effect on the population. I do support spearing however. I think it is time for the DNR to implement some sort of tag system where a guy can take one or two fish a year over 20 pounds. That way we can hang on to the older fish and balnace the age structure. Just my opinion on the whole deal. Anyway, good luck to all.

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Guys here is my $.02 on spearing.....
I have been spearing for 5 years I go 2-3 times a year and for 2 of the times that I go I go to Winnie.... I am not an advocate of spearing giant pike for the following reasons
1. They taste like dump...I prefer 2-5 lbers. anyway...
2. I am not gonna mount a a monster pike with holes in it anyway....
3. It is much more fun to see how they respond to your decoy movements....
For those who say that spearing is detrimental to the large pike population I say calm down ... it is a proven fact the there are far less people who spear than who fish by normal means...don't believe me read the current issue of Outdoor News...I believe that the real problem is that there is much more pressure on pike from regular anglers than from people who spear... you may catch a 36in pike during the summer but how do you know the fish survives?
when I see that size of fish while spearing I know he survives because I won't catch him at all...
agree or disagree I really don't care because I will keep spearing until it becomes against the law...

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If it was so easy to catch fish.... they'd call it catching and not fishing

[This message has been edited by BMAT43 (edited 01-12-2004).]

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I have to agree.

I'm not a spearer. I would probably enjoy it mostly for the thought, but not interested in actually throwing a spear. When you look at it in a different way, it is how some of our founding fathers survived. We don't need to hunt, fish, or trap to survive, however we do it soley for the purpose of ritual. Yes, we eat the meat, but beef is much better and still cheaper......

If you have a problem with spearing, because it kills fish, or you feel that it is "un-fair"

I'll give you an example of unfair.
Try a vexilar????? How many more fish have you caught because of electronics?

Howabout GPS. The new maps put you perfectly on an inside turn of a Mille Lacs MudFlat........hammer big walleyes all day long.

But to really top it off..........
Howabout that underwater camera. THAT IN ITSELF IS CHEATING.........THE FISH DON'T HAVE A CHANCE.....

I own all three, but I also catch and release ALOT of my fish, if not all on most outings.

With that camera, I've caught more pike by jigging that I have tip-ups in the past 3 years, by a factor of 3 jigging to 1 tip up.

Yes, maybe spearing makes you made at the guy who speared the 20lber, but why, so you couldn't catch him with your vex and camera to put him on the wall yourself????

Spearing is an Art/Tradition?Ritual. It is also a right.

Fishing isn't that good anymore...........that is unless you have all the gizmos and gadgets that cost $1000. We made our own fate by buying all the jazz. If you don't have $40000 in equipment, you ain't $#!+

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Let 'em go so they can grow!!!

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I've been spearing for about 5yrs and it's a rush to see any fish come in. I have my house out on a NE metro lake and mabey things are different in 'out-state' MN but we don't get many northerns over 4lbs to swim on by. We saw a 8-9lb fish about 3yrs ago, but it hung off to the side and never came in. However we do see a lot of nice muskies. In the entire time I've been spearing we've harvested about 5 fish and all were between 1.5-4lbs. It's not the thrill of the kill, but the excitement of watching THEM hunt your bait. The smaller ones will come slinking through the weeds while the bigger fish will come in above the weeds. Sometimes they'll circle the bait while others will come in fast and pause about a foot away and then smash the decoy. It's also a thrill to see the big muskies come in for a look. As a side note, it's easy to tell a muskie from a northern while spearing, anyone who says differently should have their eyes examined. Spearing is like watching a giant fish tank where you are a guest in their domain. It's similar to deer hunting, but you don't hear them come in as well as deer smile.gif
I generally use 10-12" sucker minnows as live bait, but I do have a couple of decoys (Whitefish & Walley colored) made by a guy who's name is Dewey I believe.
I've also gone after Sturgeon with a spear in WI for a couple of years, but never saw one under the ice. However, I plan on doing it again next year.

PJ

ps. If I want to be entertained, I spear. If I want meat, I use tip-ups - they're far more effective.

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WOW!!!
Great conversation.. I like the comments everyone is making, very informative!! I have to agree with everyone (good or bad). I really like your post Big G, have to agree with ya on everything. From someone that does't even spear too feel so strongly about it, thats GREAT..
Here is one that I thought was pretty funny.. I was out spearing one day and I nailed 3 northerns about 4 pounds, let 3 swim away so, I could of had my limit (the limit was 6).. Walked over too a couple of guys that were fishing w/tip-ups and asked, "how ya doing?" They said "pretty good we got 11 need one more".. They asked me so are you spearing? I said yep.. They started in on me about how spearing ruins the lakes, and how unsporting it was etc.etc. I felt kinda stupid, and then thought alright lets break this down.. I am one person, with one hole, and one piece of bait, I had 3 on the ice and let 3 go. They were 2 guys, 8 tip-ups, and 8 pieces of bait,(you could have 4 lines per person)the odds are kinda in their favor! Not to mention 11 fish on the ice...
I thought to myself "I'm hurting the lake, NOT"... I realize there isn't much CPR in spearing, but these guys weren't real interested in CPR themselves.
Oh well, such is life....

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I don't know where Crappie Jigga was (sorry about the mis-spelling, I should of wrote it down).

However in South Dakota, we can have 4 tip ups per person and I believe that we could also have 6 pike each.

NOW: picture this. 4 guys + 4 tip-up each over the size of a football field.

Those 16 tip-ups didn't give us more than a 5 minute break for 2 days straight.

We brought home 6 fish @ approximatley 5lbs each for a big family fish fry.

Point is, those fish that were in that acre sized spread that we had of tip-ups didn't have a chance. Everywhere they turned, they saw suckers and shinners.

We probably caught 150 pike in those 2 days. Kept 6. That is pretty good CPR, when we could of kept 24.........

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Let 'em go so they can grow!!!

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I have nothing against those that spear at all and for the most part, these people are more ethical than the anglers...in my experience. I am not sure what it is or why I believe in this but I feel it is in all of our best interest to leave some of the big guys in the lake. I am a strong advocate of C&R and also think replicas should replace skin mounts. When I mentioned a tag system, I was referring to everyone, not just those that spear. Not for just slimers either, eyes and other stuff as well. All the lakes in my area are fished very heavy. Most are fished pretty much out. I agree with whoever said we need a grand worth of gadgets to catch them....that is because there are not many left. And to tell you the truth, it is only going to get worse in the future with the population growth. Just my opinions!

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