Thread: Brown bag

O.k,

I'm going to throw this out there in the hopes that someone has tried this. I read an acticle a few years ago (may have seen on on here as well) about a setup for drawing in Crappie and blue gills. The article called for a brown paper lunch bag and a couple of cups of White Rice. You take the rice and place it in the paper bag along with a small rock (to help it sink) and attach a rope to the top of the bag. This article was not talking specifically about ice fishing but I was thinking it would work best in this setup or a verticle presentation in a boat. You would sink the bag to the bottom and allow it to sit for several minutes (in order to saturate the bag and the rice and to make the bag easier to tear). After a period of time you tug on the rope to produce a tear in the bag allowing the rice to begin to rise towards the surface. This is supposed to simulate a large amount of Larvie in the water or a heavy amount of oxygen. I would assume that your best bet would be to have a hole drilled to outside of this in order to present your bait. Even better would be to incorporate this into night fishing using floating lights and have the bag placed in the middle of your setup.

Has anyone heard of this technique or tried it? If not, who's up for a field trip?

I have not heard of this, but it sounds feasible. Will have to try it to prove/disprove the theory. I'll let ya know how it works for me. Thx.

Sounds interesting.

I read an artical the other day that said after you catch one to drop crumbled egg shells down the whole to draw in the rest of the school. We tried it the other night under the lights and my son caught one right away.

The rice sounds like a better idea as it wouldn't all come up at once.

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't rice sink in the water?
It does on the stove,,, I think.

Mike,

That is a great question. I think it sinks when it is dry but floats when it is saturated. Don't quote me on that though as I have not tried it. Maybe that is a little science experiment for me and my 3 year old tomorrow. Dump a cup of rice in a pale of water and see when it become bouyant (or if it does). Heck, i'll even time it! For all I know, it rises when dry and sinks when wet. You would think I should know this as I spend a year in Japan and ate the stuff almost every day. Now you got me curious. 11:30 at night and I might have to make a trip to the kitchen.

This is why we guys do what we do. I can now sleep better tonight.

Here goes.

I used 1 cup of Uncle Ben's wild rice. I filled the sink with Cold water and poared the rice in. Over 90% of the rice floated while the remaining stuff sank or became neutrally bouyant. I watched it for 10 minutes and after that time over 70% of the rice was still floating.

When I try this, I will sink my bag to the bottom and rip it right away. This way the rice is as DRY as possible and most of it will begin to float towards the surface. By the way, my sink looked like it hade 10000 spikes or maggots in it. You cannot believe how real this stuff really looked. You need to give it a try just to see how convincing it really is. Oh, and don't tell my wife what happened to the new box of Uncle Ben's that WAS in the pantry.

I would say that this stuff disperses so well you could almost fish right on top of it. It really does look like the real thing. Who knows how long it takes the rice to become saturated in cold water. The box says 10 minutes to cook (hence the reason I used cold water). Who knows, maybe we can skim a cup or two when it comes to the surface and save it for when we fry up those slabs?