I would suggest the FL18. The FL18 has bottom 6 foot zoom feature which I love for teasing picky walleye and lake trout. The FL18 also has a low power mode for shallow fishing in weeds to help distinguish targets from weeds. I put the magnifier shield on mine to keep snow and water out of the screen. Hope this helps and good fishing to you!
I second drumshooters reply and would also suggest trying to find lake maps for the water your fishing. Look for weed beds surrounded by no weed areas in the 5-10 feet depth. Use a small jig tipped with spikes always works for me. If there is a lot of small gills, switch to a little bigger jig with plastics to catch the bigger eating size gills.
I love using tungsten with Little Atom Nuggie plastics. Great action in the tail, great smell to the fish, great selection of colors to choose from. I use these on light fluorocarbon line 2 lb or 4 lb for gills, perch, crappie, small walleye with a slow bite I put wax worm on or take the plastic off and load it with spikes.
I like using Moonshine Shiver Minnow for lake trout, pike, and big walleye. Again great action, great glow colors to choose from. On a slow bite I will tip the treble hook with a small fathead minnow head.
A great tip for using your flasher for first clear ice is to bring a bottle of water with you to look around. Pour a small amount of water on the ice so your ice ducer can make the connection. This helps find fish that are active before ever drilling a single hole. I have had days on the ice when I searched for active flashing fish on the flasher for an hour or more, but then only drilled 4-6 holes all day and caught fish all day. Stay safe and happy fishing!
I own quite a few different augers that I have acquired over the many seasons. Here is my list.
8 inch jiffy gas
5 inch tanaka/laser gas
6 inch mora laser hand auger
8 inch ion electric
4 inch flat blade hand auger
The ion was my last purchase and I have to say even after only running it the last half of last season it……is…….fantastic! Short, light weight, no gas/oil mess, and most appealing it doesn’t hang up at the bottom of the hole even if its an old hole. I have had no issues at all with drilling 50+ holes, but was advised by the ion rep to keep the battery warm in the heat pouch or inside your jacket or inside the flip over which I have done. They are $100 more than most big gas augers but after testing a unit on the ice, the benefits for me out weighed that extra cash. Ion is now my go to for every trip no matter what we are chasing.
Just a little side note and tip, I never go on the ice fishing alone or especially with fishing clients without my 6 inch hand auger. This advice has saved me a few times when the gas wouldn’t start. My arms will never let me down where a motored auger certainly can. Stay safe and happy fishing this season!
Yaktrax are nice I have about a dozen pair all different sizes for ice fishing clients of all ages and sizes. They are a great fairly inexpensive add on that provide decent traction when there is no snow to fill the springs. For the money they are a great buy. I myself would go through at least three pair on my feet per season as I do a lot of walking and not so much atv/snowmobile. So I decided to try Kahtoola micro spikes. They are twice the price initially, but I have had the same pair starting into the 3rd season of use this season. Much more aggressive traction, much better made with heavier rubber bindings, and better resistant to snow build up. I really like both yaktrax and kahtoola and own both, but kahtoola is what stays on my ice boots. I wish you a safe and exciting ice season!
For me…….small tip up fishing 5-10 holes=really sharp 6″ FIN Bore
…….Large tip up fishing 15-30 holes=8″ Jiffy gas or Ion
…….small jigging set up + long walk + 5-20 holes=6″ FIN Bore
…….small jigging set up + short walk + 20-30 holes=5″Lazer/Tanaka gas
…….Large jigging set up + long walk + 20-40 holes=8″ Ion electric
…….LG jigging set up + short walk + 20-40 holes=8″ Jiffy or Ion
I have to say once you start using an Ion, its hard to put it down and use something else. Very light, NO gas/oil, no staining on clothes, very quiet. Very nice NOT to catch at the bottom of the hole when drilling. But $400 is a big investment over a $100 FIN Bore hand auger. If you get the chance to buy an Ion, one tip I will offer is to keep the battery inside your jacket to keep warm until you need it. I have also used a small insulated soft side lunch bag with a thermos of hot coco placed out of the wind and had that work too.
GOOD FISHING TO YOU ALL THIS SEASON!
Sweet! A 5 gal. bucket, a small heater and some food and you wouldn’t have to leave…..ever….. except to follow blood trail! Seriously, nicely done.
With any new tree stand, ground blind, camo netting, hunting chair and basically anything I plan on leaving in the woods for deer hunting I like to open them up and stake them down in my back yard. Then I just wait for the wind and rain to beat the crap out of them for a couple weeks to get the new smell out before I bring them in the woods and set them up in a location.
Whitetail Strategies Guide Service Availability Schedule Update
Vermont First Archery Season-Has closed for the 2015 season
Vermont Regular Rifle Season-One 3 day buck hunt available November 19-21 2015
One 3 day buck hunt available November 23-25 2015
Vermont Second Archery/Black Powder Season-No hunts available pending any cancelations
Vermont Rabbit Hunting Season-Many openings from January-February 2016
Vermont Guided/Outfitted Ice Fishing Trips-Many openings January-March 2016
Vermont Spring Turkey Season-Several hunts available May 1-31 2016
See Whitetail Strategies Guide Service on the web at http://www.whitetailstrategies.net
Contact Whitetail Strategies Guide Service at [email protected]
WHITETAIL STRATEGIES GUIDE SERVICE
Vermont hunting and fishing outfitter and guide service
Schedule Update
Remaining hunts:
November rifle whitetail is completely booked. I am taking reservation deposits for the 2015 deer season.
December black powder buck hunt, arrive Dec. 8th, hunt 9th-11th, I only have one place available remaining to make a group of 4 hunters.
Also gearing up for the 2015 rabbit hunting with beagles and ice fishing season starting the end of December 2014 through March 2015. December 2014 rabbit hunts are completely booked. The first week of January 2015 is the earliest available, reserve know to get your choice of dates. Rabbit hunting requires you to bring a shotgun, ammo, hunter orange, VT hunting license. Ice fishing is fully guided, all that is required for you to bring is warm clothing, water proof boots, and current Vermont fishing license.
I offer, free of charge, assistance booking reservations for local lodging and meals located in the heart of the hunting and fishing properties.
“Ahh hell, I don’t stick that bad, I’ll take a bath next week”
Little Atom Nuggies, Hali’s, Fiska tungsten jigs, and Moonshine Shiver Minnows are my baits of choice.
It is a lot of work building and maintaining a food plot. But it is so much fun to see what your efforts can yield. It is so addicting, once you got the “plot bug” you’ll never stop. I planted a 1/4 acre plot many moons ago by hand. Now I am planting 15+ acres with ATV harrow, tractors, and heavy machinery. Yesterday I finished cutting the grass root mat with a TD-8 dozer on an acre & a half that has never been plowed. I found that removing the top two inches of root mat makes it easier to disc up with the ATV disc harrow. Good luck to you this fall!
I am a big fan of Biologic and that is the only seed I will plant for wildlife food plots. I have planted a different seed mix called Hot Spot this season. It is a fall seed mix that comes in 5 lb bags to cover a 20 yard by 20 yard plot. A great hunting size plot. I haven’t used this seed mix before, but I trust Biologic. I use Biologic PH fertilizer and Seed Coat for all of the plantings to give it the best chance possible. In the infancy of my outfitter company, I had a very small budget for food plot work so that is what I bought farm grade seed. As an experiment on the second season I bought farm grade peas, and Biologic peas. I planted them both in the same two acre plot, farm grade on one side, Biologic on the other. When the plot matured, the Biologic did better by leaps and bounds. The deer would walk through the farm grade on camera to get to the Biologic seed side. I was sold. Yes, deer did eat in the farm grade side, but for the most part they preferred the Biologic side much more. Spending more money on something usually means you get a better product, in this case it was definitely true. I say, spend what you can within your budget because something fresh and growing is better than an overgrown field with little to no feed. I spend the extra money for the science that went into engineering the seed that I buy. To each their own. Good luck to everyone this fall!
If the battery will still hold a good charge, as a new battery for $50 will come with new connector tabs, you may consider buying some heat shrink tube and small connectors male and female for the wiring. Then try soldiering the new wiring connector one side to the battery, male or female, then just reconnect the matching connector that is crimped on the wiring. I hope this helps, I have done this successfully to the mini 12 volt kiddy truck battery. I have never had to do this to a flasher battery. But should be virtually the same.
The sprayer nozzle that comes with those bottles works awesome! A very fine mist for good spray coverage and less solution used. I re use the sprayers, cut the straw down short and use them on a very small bottle to put in my pack to conserve weight. $1 each is a sweet find.
Andrew’s second flat is a monster! Awesome! Inspiring of a road trip, really!
Food plots are addicting, once you get going its hard to stop. No such thing as left over seed, just means one more food plot. We’re addicts, first step is admitting you have a problem. I am thinking of joining a FPA (food-plots-anonymous) if I can find one, only for current seed availability of course. LOL!
Great photo’s! I have never caught a flat head catfish. We only have channel cat’s here in Vermont. But flat’s are on my bucket list.
Thanks for the kind comments guys! Lake Champlain is a great cat fishing lake. Our average is about 10 lbs, but we have landed cat’s in the low 30 lb range. We also have broke 25 lb test mono on fish that just wouldn’t stop or turn, so the choice is tighten the drag or get spooled. That don’t happen very often though. Good luck guys!
39×25 hit about 7pm last night
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Sorry guys, but that cat is not 30lbs………..it looks bigger than that to me! Awesome video! I have never caught a flathead. Its on my to-do-list though.
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Thanks Joel. Your right on about me being a turkey nut. Actually, its more like a bag full of nuts. I cant get enough of the outdoors. I have been that way since I could walk. I have tried everything I can when the opportunity was presented for any adventure outdoors. I have been canoeing in February on the Saco river in ME, bear hunting deep in the Allagash in ME, and moose hunting in Northern Vermont. I have enjoyed taking people hunting all over Vermont and other states like CT, MA, NJ, PA, OH, IL, IA, IN, TX. I really enjoy helping young hunters and fisherman, or those that have been hunting and fishing but want to up their game, learn the tricks I use in the field that work for me. I own a Vermont based outfitter and guide service, and I am now on my 6th season officially open. I am now part of many forums, and I am having a great time offering suggestions and tips for the outdoor sportsman in search for ideas. Thanks for the welcome sign!
Whitetail Strategies Guide Service
Fred Scott Owner/Head Guide
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I use 9′ ugly sticks medium action paired with an Okuma Avenger ABF 40 reel. It has a bait feed clicker alarm and the medium action rods work great with circle hooks when young or inexperienced cat fishing clients are getting ready to tangle with the channel cats of Lake Champlain. Good luck to you!
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Great catches everyone! I got one to show of a young cat fishing client this last spring on Lake Champlain. Good luck to you all this season!
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I have never heard of cereal rye. It sounds like a great idea with the low ph needs, breaking up soil, and staying green for a long time. I deal with Biologic for all my food plots and I am very happy with the results. I plant maximum, lablab, and biomass in the spring for all of my big plots which is about 12 acres added up or so, varying in size from 1 acre to 3 acres. I plant Biologic brassica and hotspot in the fall for hunting plots and after season feed for deer and turkeys. Size wise for the fall plots varies from 1/3 to 1/2 acre for the most part adding up to another 3+ acres.
In my opinion, whenever you can better your hunting properties, it is a good thing. Whether its only breaking up a bit of dirt and spreading clover or a full on vegetation killer spray, tilling, lime, fertilizer, brush and tree removal, picking stones, and laying down a high quality food plot seed & rolling it in. The next time you redo that plot it will be a bit easier to till and the deer will have made a habit of using the food plot for a source of food.
I do a lot of plot work with a 6 disc harrow I pulled out of the overgrown brush and brought back to life with new weight boxes and replacing all of the bolts plus a bit of welding. I pull the small disc harrow with my 650cc ATV pretty easily and it does a great job, especially in those plots that trucking bigger equipment like tractor & tiller would be a project. With the ATV and small harrow, I can load it on my little 5×10 guide trailer very easily. So keep your eyes open for an old disc harrow lost in time stuck in the brush that someone would sell cheap, its a good investment. For the big plots that I can drive the tractor equipment to the location, instead of trailering, it really makes short work of tilling up a plot leaving more time for stone removal and such. Good luck this season!
Whitetail Strategies Guide Service
Fred Scott Owner/Head Guide
That is hilarious! I hope you meant it to be……
I got the same message from “tina”. Not impressed at all. And you know it has a virus.
I joined the IDO forum just recently. I am a honest, true sportsman that enjoys helping others experience the great outdoors both on great forums and through my outfitter guide service in Vermont. I received this message through the IDO message board and I have to say I am not impressed. Can someone with the knowledge of computers and tracking down this person and making sure I don’t receive these messages ever again. I thank you for your help with this in advance.
Whitetail Strategies Guide Service
Fred Scott Owner/Head Guide
Here is the message as I received it:
tina Sent 2 hours, 48 minutes ago
Greeting From Tina
How are you today? and how about your
health? hope fine and you are doing well, My Name Is Miss Tina, I am looking for a very nice man of love, caring, honest, matured, understanding, and of good character, then after going to your profile on this site (www.in-depthoutdoors.com)
i pick interest in you, so i will like you to write me with My E-mail address is ( [email protected] ) so that i will send you my picture and tell you more about me
Miss Tina
I had the same condition happen here in Vermont. End of April through the first week of May the turkeys were gobbling morning, noon, and night. Birds were responding to calls like we all dream about. Then starting the second week of May and lasting two almost three weeks, the turkeys just plain shut up and disappeared. The occasional hen walking the meadow edge, but hardly any birds being vocal. I changed my tactics up to hunt them like deer with an ambush hunting style method which is a great hunt, just not as interactive with the turkeys. We still got birds and filled tags, but it was challenging to say the least.
Whitetail Strategies Guide Service
Fred Scott Owner/Head Guide
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Yeah, I have had that happen before. It was an act of sabotage by a mentally unstable, very jealous acquaintance of a friend in deer camp for the second season in a row, years ago now. He was one of those guys that had to be the only hunter that is successful while at deer camp. On the first year with him, after 3 out of 5 of us archery hunters in camp shot great bucks, he started walking through other hunters climbing stand locations and spreading human scent to keep deer out of those areas to possibly increase his odds, I guess. He did a bunch of other horrible things behind the guys backs, but I think you get the idea. He was not liked very much by thousands of other hunters after that last trip, as a few of us at camp were pretty well connected in the hunting community. As some of the attacks were severe safety issues, when this guy had a invitation to go on a hunt with a different group, we had to explain what happened and what he had done. As for my release malfunction, which is what I thought it was at first, happened on the third day of camp while taking some test shots to check accuracy and such. The first arrow hit dirt in mid draw. The second sailed high over the target. Thankfully we had a big dirt back stop or something bad could have happened. When I draw my bow, my fingers are behind the trigger until I am ready to release down range. So I knew it was not my mistake when the arrows were off target. Upon inspection of the release, which I had used for 4+ years and used very well, I find that the trigger tension allen set screw had been turned all the way out. So with about 50 lbs of string weight it would open itself. That set screw had lock tight on the threads that I put there when I purchased it. When I turned the screw back in, it was squeeking as I turned it. So it didn’t wiggle loose. I knew something was up. I knew it had been tampered with. And I fixed it right infront of him. Not to say someone has sabotaged your equipment, but maybe the release is not broken. Check the trigger tension screw. If that’s not the issue, then buy a brandy new one to set your mind at ease. Good luck this season!
Whitetail Strategies Guide Service
Fred Scott Owner/Head Guide
