Last year I did some research to get my brother-in-law’s 10 year old Leech Lake knife restored to it’s former glory. The blade was dinged up and in rough shape and the handle had lost it’s finish and looked bad. I found the company that manufactures these knives for the Leech Lake knife company. Custom Cutlery and Ironworks produces these knives. I contacted them. They had me pay shipping – I think it was $10 or $12. I got the knife back in 10 days. It was restored to new condition! They resharpened the blade to new condition and they even replaced the worn out handle with same color as it was new! http://www.customcutlery.com/ Contact them and they will give you info to send it in.

I used a Sahara 500 for summer and winter panfish fishing. I feel it is a great reel. Anyways, I had one start to wear out on me – caught lots of fish. I ended up getting a Pflueger President to replace it and I love it! My wife has a Gander Mountain branded ultralight reel I purchased for her last year. It is nice, but feels a little sloppy in the build characteristics. I will probably be replacing that with a President when that fails. I will also probably replace my walleye Shimano reel with a president when that fails. I guess I am saying that I now prefer the Pfleuger over the Shimano reels – which I have used all my life.

I watched the video from Dan Canney on how to use the knife. After reading the 1st two opinions, I ordered the green/black knife. I will leave a review after I clean the fish from my fishing trip in May. I am excited to use a knife of this quality – I hope!

What brand are your reels? I just lubricated mine – Shimano reels.

Took the wife to Tucans tonight. I had steak and my wife had scallops. The food was amazing and the drinks were delicious. I had a few bloody marys and my wife had some of their mixed uv drinks. Great place for dinner. Probably going to Izatys tomorrow eve as they are having live music. Hopefully we can find some walleyes or any other fish. I just want to see my wife catch something on this mini vacation. I am open to more tips! Colors/locations. We will be renting a boat all day, stopping somewhere for lunch, hopefully filet some fish, then off to dinner. Let me know if any of you Ido`ers will be around the area. We would be happy to meet you for dinner at Izatys or somewhere else. We would also be happy to meet you somewhere on the lake. Good night and good fishing!

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I will be dressing her in my ice fishing suit and winter boots to keep her warm. She never seems to get too warm for some reason. We also have a hot tub in our room for her (us) to use to warm up after a cold day of fishing. Fishing is not her biggest hobby by any means, so I plan to wine and dine her to make sure she feels appreciated. Any tips on good places to eat? On and off the lake?

I have had this unit for 2 seasons now. I absolutely love it. Make sure you compare Marcum to Vex to Humminbird as they offer some different features. I chose the Humminbird for a few reasons. It has a dual beam cone which helps in weeds or when I want to see farther out to the side of the hole. It also has an Auto selector so it will read the bottom and adjust the screen automatically while displaying the depth in the middle with a digital readout. Also it has a 6 color selection. I use it sometimes. The screen is bright, the knobs work well and it is easy to operate. Also, I particularly liked the way the zoom function worked.

I fish with guys that have Vex’s and Marcums. The units all perform well, but there is one difference that has made the other guys jealous. Sometimes we get a lot of interference from eachother’s units or from some unknown source. My Humminbird can almost always clear all the clutter while the Vex’s and Marcums sometimes can not. This last winter we were in Canada on LOW and we were on a spot where we had terrible interference. My unit was the only one we could read. We were catching whitefish and the units helped us catch fish, but in this 1 spot, my unit was the only one that could clear most of the clutter. The other guys simply turned their units off because they couldn’t read anything. We have no idea what the interderence was from – there was nobody else around fishing.

Anyways, they are all great units, but I love my Humminbird Ice 55 and would definitely buy it again over any other brand!

The circles represent the approximate areas that we were catching the crappies/sunnies. We were catching quite a few good size sunnies and mostly small crappies in both locations. The 1 bass we caught was in the area of the south circle on the main part of the lake. We did not try any dock fishing. The only spot we worked for bass and pike was up near the park with no success. Good luck fishing! Let me know how you do at the tournament and what you had success doing.

I was on Medicine Lake last Thursday with the intent to target bass and pike. We used rapalas, suckers and scum frogs, working all depths and shallow weeds with no success on the north end of the lake. We decided to move to another part of the lake and saw a school of fish on the locator in 20 fow suspended around 15 feet down. We slaughtered the crappies and sunnies. After catching lots of fish, we moved and found many more schools in 30 fow suspended again. We caught all our fish jigging with silver jigs and gulp minnows over the side of the boat. We caught 1 bass doing this that was 15″. Also, many of the sunnies were ready to burst with eggs. It was a fun day. Glad to see you had some success as well! I might hit the lake tomorrow (Wednesday) for a while if my buddy is up to it.

I have had some success on a smaller metro lake. The crappies I found are hanging on the edges of large shallow flats in 5 to 12 feet of water. They have been biting on crappie minnows on a plain hook set at about 3 to 4 feet down.

Total = 22.6
Walleye = 7.6
Sauger = 3.9

My Clam had a few holes from a mouse. I purchased the Clam patch kit and used the 3M adhesive spray they recommended. It worked great.

I have a MN and a WI license. I suppose this means I can have 3 lines out on the WI side and 2 out on the MN side of the river? I know that is not an option, but I would love to hear what a Game Wardens response would be!

I use Fireline Crystal and Nanofil on my walleye rod and my light action rods for crappie/perch. I also attach 18 inches of mono of the same pound test (4 or 6 lb) using a uni to uni knot if I think the fish are extra finicky.

I picked up an Ice 55 before the start to ice fishing last season. I love it. It automatically sets the depth if you want it to, has a great zoom funtion, easy to read face, a digital readout for the depth and a dual beam cone. I have zero complaints about it and have had great success using it next to vexilar and marcum units. They are all great units, but I am very satisfied with my purchase.

I have been using Gulp since Spring 2009 and I have had a lot of success with it. My dad started using the 2″ minnows in place of crappie minnows for crappies on a lake he regularly fishes. He said he was tired of trying to keep live bait, so he decided to spend the $20. After his first time using it, he told me how well it worked. I didn’t believe him. I decided to go out with him one day in which he would use Gulp and I would use a live crappie minnow. He was catching more fish and the Gulp minnow stayed on his hook and would last for at least 20 fish. I was doing well with minnows, but I had to keep replacing them and if I missed a bite, there was a decent chance my minnow was gone. I switched to Gulp after 2 hours of this and and stayed with the Gulp. I am a true believer. I also use Gulp leeches and Gulp sinking worms. I will admit that when the fish are very picky, live bait works better than minnows, but if the bite is even half decent, Gulp has always worked for me.

I caught a 20″ largemouth this spring with Gulp. It is my largest bass that was caught on a Gulp sinking worm. I caught many other nice bass this day – a rainy and cold day.

in closing, I was very skeptical with Gulp, but I am a true believer after this last summer of fishing. I am going to be ice fishing this weekend and I am going to give Gulp a try through the ice. I will let you know how I do through the ice with it.

I would like to go out this weekend, but I have to work on some wedding stuff with the fiance. You tell me which sounds more fun…

I am hoping to try Bald Eagle Lake in the near future if it works out. I have only been on Peltier and Centerville this year as far as local area lakes are concerned.

Thanks for all the tips guys! I will let you know how it goes after the trip. I’ll also let you know if we had a need for one of those large gold poles!

I kept a few crappies that were 9″, and a few large sunfish. I threw back a couple small crappies and numerous medium sized sunnies.

The only other lake I have ice fished in the area is Peltier. It was a slow bite the day I went and I caught only a few sunfish. I don’t think I caught any crappies.

I did see there is a fishing contest coming up. What is the date of it again? I forgot to grab a flyer from the gas station. I would like to make it there if I am available that day.

It is fairly busy and sees a good amount of pressure, but it is not overwhelming like some area lakes.

The ice was about 9 or 10 inches. There were a few trucks on the ice on Centerville Lake. I am thinking of trying Centerville Lake on my next outing. I would like to find some crappies and walleye.

Definitely April 8!

I have a Showdown that I have been using this season and have been very pleased with it. The screen is easy to read. It is very sensitive and picks up the smallest jigs I have – and I have fished in water up to 30 feet deep. The battery life is great as well because there are no moving parts like the flashers, and there is no hum or sound that emits from the Showdown. Also, I have had no problem eliminating the intereference while fishing next to a Marcum and a Vexilar FL-18.

It also has a zoom feature and the user is able to adjust the area of the water column to zoom in to. I love the zoom feature on this unit and use it almost all the time.

The bad – The LCD screen will slow if the unit gets too cold, but it does have a built in heater the user activates if needed. The top 5 feet of the water column will then be filled with intereference that can not be corrected. The screen is only black (4 level grayscale) and white, with an indiglo color backlight. This means that it can be hard to see those fish hugging the bottom if you are not watching carefully. If you watch the screen carefully, you will see the bottom lines fluctuate indicating fish. On the Flashers, these fish are easier to see as you would see yellow appear on the red bottom. The color on the flashers makes it much easier to see the fish on the bottom.

Some people complain that the unit is too “tipsy” because it has a smaller footprint and stands taller. I find that this is true, but I just pat the area flat with my glove and it is fine. I do like the smaller footprint as it is easier to use in my one man fish house.

The final gripe is the cone on the unit. It has a single beam cone at 18 degrees. It would be nice to have a dual cone as some of the flashers have.

All in all, I am happy with my Showdown. The price is right and I think it is more affordable than other brands and it does have some nice features. I do have to say that after fishing next to a Vexilar FL-18, I like the color screen and I also thought the Vexilar tuned out interference better than my unit could.

I hope this review shows you some of the good and bad of the Showdown. My next unit will be a flasher with the color screen so that I cen see those bottom hugging fish a little easier.

~Brian

Are those wounds on the fish from another larger fish, or are those wounds from a disease?

I have the light rod and just used it on a fishing trip catching perch, crappie and walleyes. It worked great for all the species. I use the medium spring on it currently and like that for all species I have fished so far.

Can you tell me where the Willow Creek Reservoir is? I have searched online, but I can’t find it. Thanks!

The areas I set the tip up in are not usually near a drop off, just where there is a gradual change of depth the farther from shore. As far as weeds, sometimes in weeds, somtimes not. Some lakes it works well in the weeds for me, some lakes better with lack of weeds under hole.

Went to Silver Creek again today – Sunday. What a cold, windy day. I used my new ice house – Clam Fish Trap Pro – and it worked great. Was on the ice from Noon until 6:30 PM. I caught 2 sunfish and 1 crappie. Marked lots of other fish, but they just wouldn’t bite on waxie or minnow -many different color jigs used. Anyone else havung luck?

I use 25 pound nylon line with an 18 inch 20 pound leader. I use northern sucker minnows, hooked through the back behind their back fin. I put on one large split shot on the leader. I set the tip up in 6 to 8 feet of water, usually 6 to 7 feet. I set the minnow about half way down – 3 feet down. Pike are more in the shallows and I hear they often hang just below the ice. That is my setup. Also, I use a Frabill round tip up to cover the hole. I just caught this 28″ pike last Thursday in 6.5 feet, 3 feet down using this technique, had two other trips on the tip up, but missed the fish.

That is great!!