Pools 8 and 10 panfish

After managing a day off on Friday, the truck was pointed north to try the deeps for some pool 8 panfish.

Being the second northern trip of the season gave us an idea where to set up. Initially, crappies were the target, popping holes in depths from 18-35fow. A few high marks off the bat but only 1 10in.slab finding its way up the hole the first 15 minutes. Not fast enough for this cat! Marking a ton of gills on the bottom with the Marcum LX5 a few extra holes were bored out with the trusty Strike Master in the 20ft. range. That is when the head scratching began…….

Buddy Jay was set up a short ways from myself. Bret, Mike, JP Mason, and Dan were in an area roughly 150ft.away. IDOer TJ91 along with his friend Pete were out in the basin depths, content on chasing the loose schooling slabs.

Minutes before, Jay was talking about a certain lil- cecil that he found and tied on the night before. As it turns out, by mornings end, quite a few guys were scrambling to find this certain flashy little number. Once in awhile during a season, one jig and one jig only is the ticket, not just the type of lure but also the color pattern. Today was Jays day! Everyone was on fish, don’t get me wrong, the flashers were constantly ratting out their presence and you could see the interest the gills were taking, just not the eating part. Rough guess….Jay was icing gills 8 to everyones 1! In a short span it was obvious he was on his way to a quick limit of good gills while everyone was saying "what the heck"!! Nice job Mr.Fitzgerald and thanks for leaving me that cecil after you lugged off your nice mess of fryers……good luck getting that back!

Turns out, I finally found a similar cecil that I put out on loan to Bret. Seeing that the treble was designed for big slabs, Bret quickly changed out the hook and downsized. Tipping the cecils with waxies and working the bottom ft. turned a frustrating day into a salvage mission. By days end and with JPs donation(Thanks JP) of some hearty blue ears a fine mess was finally put together.

As always, it is really a pleasure to hook up with friends from this site and mixing it up, talking fishing and shooting the bull. Time can really fly out there and a guy only wishes that the days were alot longer. Thanks buddy Bret for locating the herd bulls. Mike, and JP…..always a pleasure! Nice meeting Abe and Dan also, hope the rest of your ice season keeps you on top of those awesome pool 8 fish!

My son Cam missed out on Fridays LAX run do to a tight 6th grade schedule.(Get use to it kiddo) Saturday on the other hand, Cam was all sorts of fired up to chase the shallow sloughs of pool 10 for biters. This was a special day for the lad. A few weeks before, Dad was getting a little riled about sharing the Marcum with his 12 yr.old. A decision for another flasher was made and the shopping began. Sitting along side each other in the tent brought about concerns of screen interference that a lower end model would recieve from the LX5. IR (Interference reduction) was an absolute must but it also had to fall into a lower end, mid January budget. The LX3 was getting consideration until an excellent suggestion by James Holst. James mentioned the great features on the new Marcum VX-1 along with a great introductory price! A little homework was done, a call was made and after a whopping day and a half wait the unit was at our door step.

Getting Cam set up with his new toy was painless, he did have some experience with the lx5 so that did shorten the learning curve. Before I was done popping holes, Cam already had the unit fired up, bottom zoom and IR turned on and quickly put his first keeper gill on the ice. Heckuva unit! Lighter weight, easy operation for kids and newbies with a crisp, colorful- three color read out. If you are considering a flasher without all of the bells and whistles but still want to be able to hunt down the biters then this unit should really be considered…….sure glad we did!

Good luck IDO,

keep drilling ice!!