And it turned out awesome!
In this episode Scott Steil and I head out in search of trophy sized panfish with a special emphasis on monster-sized bluegills.
We ended up finding the motherload of slab crappies and mega-sized bluegills relating to some deep structure in the form of sunken timber. The underwater footage we were able to obtain (we had 16′ visibility) still has me in awe over the number of adult fish that will cluster around prime habitat! We caught a monster muskie busting through this school of pannies in search of its next meal…. two times! Big walleye were spotted repeatedly cruising slowly around the edges of the timber looking to catch an off-guard bluegill. And all of it is on film.
This show will focus on teaching how to locate big panfish and how to consistently catch them once they’ve been found. The “big fish” for this shoot was a 1 Lb 3oz. bluegill caught on a purple mini mert by yours truely. 8.5″ – 9.5″ bluegills were common. Despite the massive quanitites of fish in the area the bite was very difficult and we had to really pull out some tricks to consistently catch these fish. If you’ve never used an underwater camera while ice fishing… you need to see this episode to see what a useful tool an underwater camera can be when trophy panfish are ultra-finicky.
Be sure to tune in for this episode: Charter Cable Channels 13 / 23 in the metro area or watch it here online. 
