BY BILL THOMPSON

SPECIAL TO
THE CHRONICLE-JOURNAL
Sometimes when youre fishing
for walleye in February, it can be the
little things that make the differ-
ence.
Yes, the first-ice bite has come and
gone, and now many anglers are
dealing with the annual mid-season
walleye doldrums.
Case in point, recently my fishing
buddy Ronny Bauman was jigging
two of his favourite minnow-tipped
baits in two holes, and to no avail.
When hunger and frustration took
its toll, he reeled in both baits and
grabbed a sandwich.
He then hooked a small minnow
on a 1/8-ounce jig, dropped it down
one of the holes, and plopped the
outfit on a bucket. In short, he was
now deadsticking.
As simple as it looked, it was
deadly. Bauman had a spring bobber
on the tip of the rod and his reel was
spooled with red braided line, and
tipped with a half-metre-long fluoro-
carbon leader.
The jig hook, which ran just un-
der the skin and parallel to the dor-
sal fin, was pointing towards the
head of the minnow.
As a result, if his bait moved,
someone would see the brightly-
coloured line move or the spring
bobber quiver. And the direction of
the hook would increase the odds of
a hook set.
Before he swallowed the first bite
of his sandwich, the spring bobber
dropped ever so slightly and Bau-
man lifted the rod, watched the tip
slowly bend down, and then set the
hook on the days first walleye. And
then another, and another.
All the while, Bauman failed to
notice Danny Williams, the other
member of our three musketeers,
just behind him, jigging a Rapala
Clackin Rap a lipless crankbait
that comes complete with an inter-
nal rattle.
That in my humble opinion, was
the little thing that made the differ-
ence. It completed the one-two com-
bination. A live target golden shiner
would have worked as well.
In this case, Bauman was only
half of the strategy. Williams actual-
ly was calling in the fish. And while
they didnt hit his noisy decoy, it
grabbed Baumans minnow dangling
about half a metre from the bottom.
I must admit that we didnt even
know of this tactic, until we attend-
ed an ice fishing seminar presented
several years ago by Gord Pyzer, in
which the Kenora resident referred
to the combination of a lipless
crankbait being jigged close to a
deadstick, As the deadliest one-two
combination for walleye on ice.
He also pointed out that the dead-
stick set up also works well, in com-
bination with a flash lure like The
Williams (no relation to Danny
Williams) Ice Jig, their Nipigon
spoon, and the blue fox tingler, or
with the horizontal presentation of
a Rapala Jigging Rap.
We later added the northland
buck-shot rattle spoon and the
swedish pimple to our flash lure line
up, and the rapala jigging shad and
snap rap, along with the salmo chub-
by darter and the nils master jigging
shad, to our horizontal presentation
list.
At the same seminar, we learned
that walleyes can be moody, aggres-
sive and passive, and all in the same
day. Knowing the fishs mood can be
critical.
And as amazing as it seems, with
a little practice, it can be determined
using electronics, whether it be with
a flasher or a sonar unit.
In short, when you use one of
these devices but especially the
zoom option while ice fishing, you
can actually see your bait, and the
fishs response or lack of it.
Either way, theyre a fantastic
learning tool, as well as a confidence
builder. And youll never forget the
first time you see a fish streak across
the screen to your lure or bait.
That said, it would take more than
a few paragraphs to deal with these
devices in depth, so I recommend
you hop on the Internet and look for
ice fishing electronics. Lowrance,
Humminbird, Vexilar and Marcum
are popular brands.
Water colour and your timing can
also be critical at this time of the
year.
While smaller, darker, tea-
coloured bodies of water may offer
walleye action all day, youre better
off concentrating on the low-light
conditions of dusk and dawn in the
clearer bodies of water.
In addition, customizing your
baits can result in a higher
bite/catch ratio.
For example, more and more an-
glers are removing the treble hooks
on their jigging spoons and substi-
tuting a stringease fastach clip or a
chain rig in its place to make the
hook ride lower.
As Pyzer explained, When a fish
hits, most of them actually inhale it
like a gold fish. And if they dont like
it, they can spit it out so quickly, you
may not feel anything.
However, with the hook hanging
farther below the spoon, you create a
pivot point, so there is a far better
chance of the hook swinging like a
pendulum and penetrating the fishs
mouth.
Yes, a big ticket item like a snazzy
snowmobile would help, but quite of-
ten its the little things that you can
do that can make the biggest differ-
ence on ice.
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PHOTOS BY GORD PYZER
Liam Whetter, 11, of Kenora, caught this walleye last weekend on Lake of the Woods.
Deadliest 1-2 combo
Here are some tricks to beat the walleye doldrums
Gord Pyzer of Kenora caught this walleye in Manitoba using a
deadstick presentation on Lake Winnipeg.
DYNAMIC FOREST
Follow
forest
industrys
good
example
BY MAC SQUIRES
A
RE the things that disturb us
about current harvesting
more a result of the har-
vesters behaviour than of the silvi-
cultural techniques being used?
Much of our concern about tim-
ber harvesting is based on memories
of practices that were current years
ago, but today are rare.
Lets look back four decades.
I recall in the early 1970s partici-
pating in national conferences of in-
dustrial foresters in which we re-
flected on rising public criticism of
our practices. We knew that media
and public perceptions were based
on a mix of truth and something
else, but in the publics eyes percep-
tion was reality. We asked ourselves,
Are we able to make a difference?
The industry was counting on us
to propose ways in which it could im-
prove its image. Many of us pro-
posed to our employers that we open-
ly confront our faults and correct
them.
Through the 70s it remained easy
to see careless practices on harvest-
ing operations anywhere in North
America. Some of the more obvious
practices included: ignoring fuel and
oil leakage or even dumping oils on
the ground; abandoning broken ma-
chinery and parts; leaving broken
and retired cable where last used; ex-
cessive bulldozing of extraction
road rights-of-way and landings;
causing soil erosion and stream sil-
tation by blocking drainage with
poorly constructed roads, culverts
and bridges; using machinery in
streams, leaving merchantable logs
that were lost from skidders to rot on
cutovers and piles of harvested
wood to rot at roadsides; and, of
course, not ensuring regeneration of
harvested areas.
This waste of resources and the
natural environment had been pub-
licly condoned and attempted im-
provement even impaired by waver-
ing official public policies from the
beginning of timber harvesting, but
by the late 70s it was clear that citi-
zens now cared and they were no
longer going to tolerate careless
practices. Our faults were exposed
for all to see and the industry was be-
ing hurt in its markets.
Objective self-examination forced
us to admit that there was much we
could do to improve. As lobby
groups pressure on our world mar-
kets and media attention intensified,
our industry began to respond.
To help guarantee wood supply,
industry requested and successfully
negotiated forest management
agreements in which they took re-
sponsibility for forest management
on their licensed areas. During the
early 1980s things began to change.
Harvested areas were now subject
to independent forest management
audits, which opened investors and
managements eyes to the fact that
there was much truth in our critics
claims.
My employer empowered its
foresters to draft a forest manage-
ment policy, followed by a policy on
all of our behaviour in the natural
environment.
After corporate approval of the fi-
nal documents, they were made pub-
lic and applied to company-wide op-
erations. Our executives made it
clear that all employees from the top
down were accountable for living
those policies.
Continued on page E2