It is becoming that time of the year, that my reel weeds will start getting a ton of use. The typical January “null” bite is in full effect. The fish are becoming tighter lipped, and the remaining true weed vegetation is almost all but gone. What is an avid ice angler to do? I suggest pulling out your reel weeds first when the bite goes south.
One of the pictures below is where reel weeds saved my day. It was the middle of January and the dull drum effect was in full swing. The bite was nil to non existent until the twilight hour. The crappies were constantly roaming, and it was almost impossible to stay with the roaming school. By putting my reel weeds down, I was able to extend the twilight bite by over two hours. When the roaming crappies found the weeds, and held up just for a bit longer, I was able to pull 4-5 out of the pack, rather than just a single fish before they moved on- I would like to quote one of my favorite sayings from Scott- I am sure you have heard it a time or two on the tv shows- But it holds very true- “the more fish we attract to an area, the likelier we are to get a biter” and that makes perfect sense- If you can attract 50 fish into an area that are negative, the odds are in your favor to entice 5-10 of them to bite rather than if you can only present your bait to 25 fish, where only 2-3 maybe swayed into your offering. That equates to more fish on the ice for us die hard ice nuts.
Reel weeds help you bring in panfish, as well as the bait fish that the predator fish are looking for- IDO Ice pro staffer Calvin Svihel, and I were talking about reel weeds last week and he told me “On a guide trip last weekend my clients had them in a rental house on Mille Lacs, they said the weeds would attract hundreds sometimes thousands of those little perch. They said they would see clouds of these smaller perch come into the reel weeds in a very short time after putting them down. I know these weeds did attract the smaller perch but not too far away were some walleyes in which they could also see on the camera. These weeds will attract smaller prey fish…..But these predator fish are not far away….”
If you can attract those bait fish into an area with Reel Weeds, you are going to be able to get those predator fish closer to your baits- And again, the more fish you can attract to an area, the likelier you are to get a biter-
If you haven’t tried the Reel Weeds yet, I suggest giving them a shot, they are a very useful tool, and they definitely help me put more fish on the ice this time of year.
If you have any questions about reel weeds, feel free to ask them here- Also check out the website at: Reel Weeds
Good luck out there!
