Jaw Jackin Jeff's Overall Nonsense Thread 2019

[OneidaEagle]

I also ordered 2 New DownRigger balls, they are not you standard balls, but bigger Balls.

They are 17# Balls vs the standard size 8# or 10# Balls.

I was bored last night and painted my new balls. They arrived Black, but I added some Bloody Gumm's for effect.

The new Shark Balls, are COOL! Might add some teeth, and eyes, just for giggles, but rest assured, I have cool Balls.




OE

[wicklundrh]

Like I said before, I think you need to add eyes and put prism tape on the tails. That tape definately helped us out quite a bit when the lake started getting clearer with the zebra mussles filtering it. Adds quite a bit of flash. I also think you need to add buck teeth to one of them.

You will love the way those track and the lack of kickback in deeper water they give. Years ago they had a strobe that was water activated. They had green, red, and blue. We put them on the back of the cannon balls and ran some tests. We didn't see an increase in catch rate. Later I took Chem-lights and affixed them to the fins our or cannot balls. I DID see an increase in catch rates in lower light (early morning, late evening) conditions but not enough to warrent running them all the time. It was a trick in the tool box in case I needed it.

One option we didn't have then that "might" be worth it now is the photoluminescent tape. Put some on both sides of the fins. That tape, when charged by the sun or the many lights on the market should glow for about 8 hours.

[Just Steve]

Good news:
Chris and I left for Houghton Lake this afternoon, joining up with the Wicklund family and their adopted son Brian




Bad news:
Our basement flooring arrived at our house a week late and like this




I hope the fish are biting......


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

[Just Steve]

Good weekend at Houghton, other than a tuber boat and a jerk at the gas station....getting real tired of people in their 2 foot bubble.
Rich and Brian fried up some walleye and it was delicious drenched in Louisiana hot sauce just prior to dropping them in oil.
Traffic was super busy, but no slow downs. Time to go back to work so I can rest up.
Some mandatory fish pictures.

Chris caught nice gills





I had a nice tussle with this one



And both mornings we had flatfish slabs and cackleberries





Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

[spartannation]

I heard that they did a weed kill on Houghton. Is that true and what are the results. Last time they did one the fishing got great for a few years, no place for them to hide, then fizzled out for a while. Also made ice fishing dangerous as the decaying weeds gave off heat that kept the ice from forming over the mats of dead weeds. 20" of ice to 2" of ice put a few atv's, side by sides and trucks in the drink.

[steelguy]

Steve , you still liking that griddle?

[wicklundrh]

Brian and I both had eye problems on Friday that prevented us from working. Out issues were "I cannot see myself working".

Because of my complete love and desire to be around people at a boat launch (sarcasm) we were up at 2:45 on Friday morning and left my house by 3:08. Of course, I couldn't remember whether it was 2 hours or 2.5 hours to the launch so I wanted to be sure I planned for the 2.5 (my memory is going bad as it was in fact 2 hours). We made it to the launch at 5:15 and was greeted with exactly ZERO people in the parking lot. In fact, I didn't see a boat come out of the harbor for well over an hour after we launched. Although the wind was light we did have waves at or around 1 foot with some 1.5's mixed in. There was a roller or two going out but nothing like the people on the radio reporting solid 2 foot waves. I love people that simply don't understand what a real wave size is.

Our first trolling pass boated a total of 8 fish with 4 being keepers. All but one came on crawler harnesses. We decided to find other water so we made a 7 mile run and found zero fish. I made another 3 mile run and found the juice in 21 feet of water. The fish were laying on the bottom. We started picking away at fish however they were coming with 1 keeper to every 7 throw backs. Hard to do when the size limit is 13 inches. Everything was coming on crawlers. Knowing that bigger fish want bigger baits I decided to take a swing for the fences. I hooked up a size 9 flicker minnow, ran it back 50 feet, clipped on a 2oz drop weight and then let out another 14 feet. This ensured that my bait was running at 20 feet down (right off the bottom). This tactic played out huge as the remaining fish we boxed on cranks were all over 20 inches (a far cry from the nursery fish we were catching on crawler harnesses). I love this new approach. Much deeper running of baits with a lot less line out. The fish of the day was this 28 7/8 walleye. It was shy of a master angler by 1/8 inch. Although I HATE keeping these fish, this fish took a hook to the gills and I didn't want to chance releasing it and having it die. I take very few pictures with fish as I normally let them go. The reason for the fish photo below was only because it didn't make it back in the water. Imagine what it would have looked like if I would have held it up to the camera like everyone else does!



We headed to Houghton Lake to clean fish. Although we wanted to fish Saturday, we were too tired in the morning and the wind kicked up in the afternoon. We did manage to get all the deck materials for mom and dad's front porch. We also decided to have a fresh walleye fry and were able to have Chris and Steve try some buffalo wing fish. Normally I dredge the fish in flour then dip in the buffalo wing sauce and fry them. The grocery however did not have 1lb bags of flour and I wasn't about to buy 5 pounds so we used our fish breading mix as a base.

We got up early on Sunday and was on the water by 6:30
Although size 5 flicker minnows have done great in recent weeks, we switched things up and went with the size 5 flicker shad. Setbacks of 35 feet started off great but as the morning sun came out, the fish didn't want the darker profiles and they started to go deeper. Chrome flashy baits worked best with setbacks of 45 and 55 feet taking most of the fish. We were fishing in 11 feet of water with weeds coming up to 8 feet. Our setbacks had the baits just over the weeds. Although Houghton Lake is known for floating vegatation due to the amount of boat traffic, the blow from Saturday night helped clean the surface. Also, with the wind out of the North and fishing the North side you really don't have a ton of area for weeds to come and collect. We did catch a few fish on bottom bouncers but cranks are what I like to do.

We finished up with 10 walleyes. Although 8 were keepers, 4 of those fish were right on the 15 inch mark and it wasn't worth taking a chance. Especially on fish that I catch all the time anyway. I've seens tail sections come off in a cooler simply by getting stuck to the ice. Try explaining that to a CO if they check you. We also ended up with 14 crappies. 5 of those fish were between 13 and 14 inches. Unfortunately, we couldn't stretch one of them to a master angler but we did get a lot of nice crappie fillets out of it.

Karma: Who did we see at the boat launch? The local conservation officer. We actually chatted for quite awhile. I think too many people treat them badly for no reason. Especially considering that most of them (when given a ticket) are the ones doing something wrong. Which then leads me back to NOT having questionable fish in my cooler. Did he check me? No but it wouldn't have mattered if he did as I had nothing questionable and nothing to hide!

I'm not sure on a weed spray off or not. The floating weeds are the issue with this lake and it is all due to jet ski's, wave runners, and boaters running overtop of weeds in shallow water. I hope they didn't kill the weeds off, they make for great fishing!

[kycreek]

LOL on the eye problems. I'm going to remember that one.

[steelguy]

nice report Rich.
I purchased some of those #5 flicker shads to try next time I am at Houghton.

[spartannation]

Hopefully the weed kill was localized better than the last big one. Sounds like it was.

Are you putting 5/4 treated on that deck? I have a Senco Duraspin for screwing those deck boards down if you want to use it. 50 screws in a plastic "clip" that self feeds with a handle that extends out, no bending over or crawling around with a cordless. Let me know and I'll get it to you.