Time to Think About This Year's Strategies

Bass Pro Shop Logo

Bass Pro Shops bought Cabela's in September of 2017.  Bass Pro Shops always had a special place for a lot of us in the Midwest, probably because the closest store was either in Omaha or Chicago so it wasn't someplace you'd just hop in the car and go, yet their catalog was huge and was really catered to the southern fisherman.  However the catalog always had a good offering to us Midwest guys.  Admittedly it was a lot of fun when you had the chance to stop at a Bass Pro Shop store as they are generally quite large and have a huge selection of everything.  For some reason I felt that Cabela's had better clothing and as well I am not a big fan of logo's plastered all over their clothing as to me it looked cheap.  Usually the opportunity to visit a store came at the end of business trips, as stated the Denver, Colorado store, the Gurney Mills, Illinois store, or the one in Grapevine Texas, through the years I've become more open to their stuff and really like their socks and Redhead casual pants.  Well the Cabela's store, 6 miles from the house, has turned into a smaller Bass Pro Shop and most of the stuff that I enjoy are now available very close.  They have a real nice fishing sale that just ended on March 3 and it was definitely taken advantage of.  In the last couple of posts you can see that my collection of spinning rods increased by a couple.  Sunday was the last day and I had been thinking about plastics as most

A few of the Powerbait colors

were on sale.  Besides using plastic to break up the routines on Lac Seul, there has been a nagging thought about trying either power grubs or crayfish shaped plastics on the river for smallmouth bass.  The river runs pretty fast so it may prove to be a challenge however it might be alot of fun.  So with that in mind I added to my collection a few more colors of Berkley's PowerBait Pro Grubs.  Of course they do work pretty well on Lac Seul anyway but it will be interesting to see how well they perform on the Mississippi River this summer.  At Lac Seul, these 3 inch grubs are inserted on a 1/4 ounce jig with a wire keeper and worked along the bottom.  For the smallmouth it is recommended that you pair them with a lighter mushroom head jig, maybe 1/16 - 1/8 ounce weighted head.  Although that seems light, it just might be the thing to keep the jig out of the rocks along the bottom of the areas we fish.  Unfortunately you will have to wait at least 5 months before there will be any results of this strategy!  Admittedly it is fun shopping for this stuff.

Drop Shotting

One of the other things that has me thinking is a technique call "Drop Shotting".  Usually done for bass, it is reported that people catch a lot of walleyes on these rigs.  Often classified as a finesse rig, a strategic way to catch pressured fish, it may have some practicality on Lac Seul for walleyes when you are marking them on the graph yet they refuse to bite.  If one thinks about it when you fish a 1/4 ounce jig with a minnow it's usually on the bottom and fish either have to notice the jig movement or be looking down.  With the drop shot rig the hook is above the bottom, often 9 - 15 inches above the sinker, therefore any walleye cruising the bottom will see the bait at their level or slightly above, and we all know a walleye's eyes are basically on the top of their head, so it only makes sense.  The bait used in with this rig can be plastic, a live minnow, a leech, or crawler.  Hence forth the secondary reason to get some more PowerBait!   One can also buy special drop shot sinkers that will easily disengage when they get snagged up.  Dang it, I was just forced to stock up on these components as well, for no other reason other than to find out if this strategy will prove to be productive, I will even try it on Leech Lake for opener this year.  Here again open water is about 60 days away with opener in just 66 days.  Something tells me that my boat partners will be begging me to rig them up this year so I had better have enough for everyone.....dang it, looks like I will be waiting for the next sale to start.

Speaking of open water in 60 days, although it seems impossible looking out the window these days, a lot can change quickly this time of year.  This weekend weather report is that broken record we discussed last week.  A huge low pressure system will meet up with the colder air and even though we will be in the low 30's it is projected that it could dump up to 15 inches of wet snow on Saturday alone.  That would easily double the amount of water laying on the ground so it's apparent what the events of this weekend will be.  Gas up the John Deere and start moving that white stuff around!