Successful Sportshow

Well, Thursday's excursion with my friend Lory Brasel was extremely successful as measured by the fact that we stayed to just before closing time, about 4 1/2 hours.  Basically I bribed Lory to go to the show with free admission tickets, he drives, and I'll buy the first beers!  Arriving at the show around 4:30 the three goals we to first see Frankies, my boat dealer and discuss the need for a replacement motor on my jon boat.  Deb and Frankie were in Texas for the last month and they really take care of me well.  Second was to try and spend some quality time with the Lowrance people.  Usually at most shows the majority of the guys are field guys, basically we'll give you a great price but you need to work XX amount of hours at our sponsored events, however the Northwest Sportshow often has factor guys in the booth, a big upgrade.  The third thing I was looking for included possible northern Saskatchewan or the Northwest Territories to possibly fish large northern pike and pig lake trout.  Of course I would definitely include my friend Bruce as he has the transportation to get there!  The first stop was Frankies as I had a nice talk with both Frankie and Deb.  They are an amazing couple and after a few minutes we got down to business......I need a new 25 hp short shaft tiller for my boat.  We sort of decided that an Evinrude might be the best choice, I actually have a line on a Riverpro Jet boat, we'll have to see.  My next stop was the Lowrance booth as I had about 6 major issues to discuss.  My arrival at the booth found myself listening to a field guy try and help out a customer that wanted to connect both his regular transducer and this Minnkota trolling motor transducer to his main Lowrance unit.  After listening to the field guy search for adaptor cables and the like, I could not stand it anymore and told the guy that there was a much easier fix, simply buy a used HDS Gen 3 and mount it to the console then network to your "Main" unit in the front.  What they were discussing was complicated and starting to add the dollars up.  I told the guy in the end, he'd have a better system and the same amount of money invested without having to relay on a "cute" solution that isn't very versatile.  Well a real factory guy came by and heard my discussion and agreed with me which allowed me to quickly transition to my first issue which was the application of Genesis Live, a new program for the new depth finders like my HDS Carbons, that will actually draw a detailed map of the bottom contour as you travel across the water.  I have talked with some knowledgeable field guys in the past but this guy was amazing.  I can actually create maps as long as my transducer is reading the bottom,  Although the best speed is 20 mph max, at my cruising speed of 35 mph on Lac Seul I should have no issue!  Also it is recommended to just leave it on as I fish and move around with the trolling motor, it will record the bottom contours very accurately.  Great news and I cannot wait to try this in Canada.  My next question was my sonichub is a 2.0 and the new one is 2.1, what's the difference.  Apparently nobody knows! We talked about the release of their new trolling motor, I suspect I will have one as soon as they become available.

3.5 inch Swim Minnow in Reel Shad Color

One of the more interesting booths was the Pro Tour Baits, a guy from Rice Lake, Wisconsin who pours his own plastic baits. They remind me of the plastic baits I bought in Texas last year from  Lake Fork Tackle, they have a distinctive garlic based scent to the plastic however they have a more a focused selection for walleye fishing.  His display has a lot of bass type plastics and they are usually packaged in large quantities of 30 - 50 lures.  I discussed my strategies for fishing more plastics this year, especially at Lac Seul and asked what his recommendations were.  First on the topic of a lure, he had a 3.5 inch Swim Minnow that looked pretty good and as well this style of bait has been productive on our trips.  Secondly was the question of color.  The water is coffee colored so I always picked a highly visible color like chartreuse, yellow, or glow in the dark, however his suggestion was to go with dark or more natural colors.  Our go to live bait is the standard Rainbow Shiner which have a distinctive red, yellow, or blueish strip on their lateral line.  I ended up

Ned Rig With Flat to Sit on Bottom

with their Reel Shad color a standard dark top, whitish bottom with a gold strip, maybe it caught me more easily however I am excited to try this both on Leech as well as Lac Seul. The combination of color and scent might just be the ticket for the walleyes this year!  Another thing we looked at was the Ned Rig.  admittedly new to this term, they had a special jig head just for Ned Rigging.  So a Ned Rig is simply a lighter weight mushroom shaped jig head, usually 1/8 ounce or lighter, with a smaller piece of plastic threaded onto the jig head.  It really doesn't look like much yet the reports state it is a deadly combination for catching both bass and walleye.   Pro Tour had a standard mushroom jig head with a flat spot added to the bottom of the jig head at a 45 degree angle to the hook.  Basically the rig simply sits on the bottom with the plastic sitting up from the bottom and the fish simply swim by and smash it.  Well, we'll see about that!  Anyway after buying a nice bag of Swim Minnows he brought out the heavy artillery, his special molded jig heads and a special plastic to use in a "special" color.  Well nobody in their right mind could refuse that offer and we parted with another $9.00.  I am thinking that the points we fish on Lac Seul might be perfect for this type of rig, but I guess I am saying that for the new plastics and colors as well as the drop shotting strategy as well, oh, so many new things to try, so little time!

The third thing that was researched was lakes in northern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or the Northwest Territories that one could fly to on your own and still fish.  Most of the resorts claim trophy Northern Pike, trophy Lake Trout and grayling fishing.  Because I would have to count on my friend Bruce to agree to fly to one of these places, there was a need to research the airstrip and  aviation gas (100 Octane) availability as well as access to the resorts.  Most were very helpful yet often warned that their runways were gravel based and the plane had to be set up for this.  Asking Bruce what this meant, basically gravel get's sucked into the prop doing damage to the leading edge.  There is a prop edge protector that is used in these situations that protects the prop from damage by the gravel, apparently Bruce doesn't have this.  Not that I am running this show, just a bystander gathering information but it is one of the destinations on my bucket list so we'll just have to see!  It was kind of fun, when you start throwing around terms that I have learned from Bruce, these guys treat you differently, that in itself is a lot of fun.  Last but not least, besides buying so new plastic lures the Sportshow is the time to renew the Outdoors News, a weekly publication of Minnesota related fishing and hunting news.  Also towards the end I was able to discuss the state of the flagpole that I have had in my yard for at least 20 years.  Uncommon USA, in Wilmar, MN made the telescoping flagpole and after the years mine was getting wore out.  I asked the guy about a slot that had developed in the bottom hole and he asked which direction it was, up or down.  After we discussed he offered a very good price to replace it, the pole was beefed up more since my original purchase as well it included both and American Flag as well as a Green Bay Packer flag.  I got it replaced last weekend and it looks great!