Had a ball in the very wee hours yesterday morning. Got myself onto a flat where they had been catching them and was not shocked that I had the place to myself. No competition whatsoever.

I started in 34 FoW (from the top of the ice) and never moved. At first, I dropped down a glow-in-the-dark lure with waxies and they'd have nothing to do with it. After have 3 or 4 fish back off, I switched to a 1/16 oz silver, thin spoon with 2 waxies and started getting action. If I vibrated the lure, they did not seem to hit it as aggressively as if I just did a slow lift of 6-8 inches and let it fall back. Then, just leave the bait sit still. The strike may come instantly or it may come 5 or 8 seconds later.

The bottom 2' was where I caught all of my fish. Would lift my bait higher to bring fish in, but did not have to do that much at all. Had to have been 1000's of cisco roaming around that flat and I think that i could have fished pretty much anywhere on it with similar results.

How many did I catch? Hard to say, but it was a bunch. I had my 10 way before I saw the first hint of sunlight in the eastern sky. Once the sky began to lighten, they hit far more aggressively until actual sunrise. There were fish constantly on my vexilar until sunrise.

I use a 24" long, very soft U/L action rod with 4# test (synthetic main and an 18" mono leader w/swivel). If they bite light, I balance the rod on one finger pad and can react to the hit instantly. If they pull the tip down 1/4" very softly, I can see it. The larger fish seemed to be caught this way as they were far softer in their strike.

Night fishing for cisco on a still, relatively mild period of darkness sure made the trip worthwhile :)



-- Edited by gpalma on Thursday 17th of February 2011 09:41:24 AM