Good morning everybody!
Has anyone here been getting harassed by really aggressive bullheads in Lake Mohawksin this year? For me, it doesn't seem to matter what bait or lure that I use, the result has been the same - bullheads!
In fact, it got so bad for me last week, that, in my anger, I swore off the lake and decided that I should go fishing on Alice or the Spirit instead. But when I calmed down, I remembered a rig that a fishing pal of mine had showed to me years ago that could make it past the bullheads without triggering a strike.
I have been successfully fishing these waters for 45 plus years and I can't ever remember having so many problems with bullheads. I have plenty of wonderful memories from fishing with great folks like the original Musky slayer - Howard Huff. For a good 15-20 years, nobody put bigger fish in the boat and drank more hard liquor over at the old Sportsman Bar as did Howard. I remember one outing with Howard when we had been working the stump field on the Mohawksin side of the Jersey trestle. It was just starting to get dark outside and we hadn't had a raise in hours, so we were about to hang it up. But Howard thought that he had seen some movement around one of these partially submerged large logs. So I rolled us close enough for Howard to take a few casts. As we approached the log, we could see that there was a mother Mallard duck with her chicks sitting on the log, and I said to Howard that, that was probably the movement in the water that you had seen. Howard said he was pretty sure it wasn't and then he opened his tackle box and pulled out a fake baby duck lure. He tied her up, took aim and plopped it in the water about a foot from the log. In an instant, it looked as if a bomb had gone off. The water exploded as this huge musky just smashed Howard's lure and the ducks on the log scattered everywhere screaming! This fish gave Howard one of the hardest fights that I had ever witnessed. So hard in fact, that Howard had me row over to the trestle where he then handed me his pole to fight the fish, saying he needed a break. He then got out of the boat and ran over to Sportsman's to get John ( for those of you who don't know, John was the owner of the bar) to bring his camera over to take a picture. Later I found out that Howard's real reason for going to Sportsman's was to get a drink. The alcohol beast really had a hold of Howard unfortunately, but that's another story. After about 10 minutes, both Howard and John arrived at the shore and I was just landing the fish at that moment. 56 1/2 inches! Truly a beautiful fish. Maybe some of you saw the picture as it hung in Sportsman's for years until the fire. Howard left me some great memories. God rest his soul.
Then there was good ol' Frank Shaff. A more dedicated perch fisherman had never been born.
Certainly not one that had graced the shores of Lake Mohawksin before. Nothing fancy, no tricks. Fishing line, hooks, sinkers and red worms, that was it. He didn't care what kind of rod and reel he had, I've seen him use a cane pole a few times and he caught just as many fish that way, too. Frank was all business on the water. He knew right were to go to pull his limit just about any time he wanted. Don't ever talk about Muskies with Frank though. He hated them with a passion. He believed them to be the curse of lake Mohawksin and that they would eventually destroy his beloved fishery. Frank sure did love his perch and the only food he loved more then perch was his wife's rotisserie chicken. Lots of great times with Frank on lake Mohawksin. God rest his soul.
But probably the greatest angler that I've had the pleasure of wetting a line with has to be Gary Wolf! All of you who know Gary, I'm sure, would agree with me. After 45 some years of fishing these waters, I can honestly tell you that I've struck out, got skunked, put up a big fat zero or whatever saying you like, about half of the time I go out. The only reason that I've even had that much success has got to be credited to Gary. You see, I've fished with him probably more than 200 times over these last 40 years and, of those times, there had never been one outing in which we came home without having caught some fish.
I swear, Gary could pull a fish up out of your cup of coffee if he wanted to. He alone has taught me more about fishing than all the fishing magazines and fishing shows put together. God bless him and give him many more years on the water.
Sorry about the tangent. This is my first time writing here and I feel like I've got so much to share with everyone that I get carried away and lose focus of what I was originally talking about. So, back to the issue of these nasty bullheads that are taking over. I don't know what causes a population boom for fish like the bullhead. The last time that I can remember ever seeing anything close to this was back sometime in the late sixties or early seventies. And then most of the problem was back in the Somo area for whatever reason. The Somo stretch produced alot of huge Muskies during those years as well. But I'm not sure that one thing had anything to do with the other.
Hopefully this is just one of those cyclical things that will pass and hopefully they're not causing any harm to the other fish populations. In the meantime, I'll share with you one of Gary's methods that he showed me years ago. It's got to be one of the craziest and most unorthodox rigs that I had ever seen, but boy does it get the job done! Especially good for walleye when gills, rock bass or, as in this case, bullheads are getting to your bait before the walleye does.
What you do is combine 2 or 3 baits together. And one of those baits needs to be something unique to the environment. For that, I would recommend either fresh salmon or fresh tuna. It's pretty easy to get. Just run into Nelsons before you hit the water and they almost always have one or the other available. You won't need alot of it because you'll be cutting it into small strips. And a bonus is, that whatever you don't use, you can cook up for yourself or freeze.
Now the way you set up your rig is almost as important as the baits that you choose. First of all, there will be no need to worry about the strength of line that you use. By no means will this be considered finesse fishing. Go ahead and use the heavy line, it just might save you a rig or 2 when you're hung up in the stumps.
So, the first thing on the line will be a nice heavy duty barrel snap swivel, or a leader with a snap swivel. ( I use the snap swivel to save time when swapping out rigs) Next, (you'll want to do this part at home to save time) you will need to set up a large 3 way swivel. Using 3 good quality strong split rings you will permanently attach your choice of 3 lures to the 3 way swivel. Get the kind of 3 way swivel that has a ring as its center (not the barrel type) By permanently attaching the lures to the 3 way swivel you will make this into a legal rig. All three of the lures are attached to each other by way of the swivel effectively making the whole thing into one lure. The lures you choose will depend on what you are fishing for, but for this example I'll use walleye as the target fish. That means I'll use one of my favorite jig heads, probably a 1/4 oz. size and then a #4 single hook Mepps Aglia in your favorite color. And lastly I'll put on a F9 floating Rapala. You can now attach the snap swivel to the middle ring of the 3 way rig. I like to attach it so that the Rapala is the middle lure. Make up 3 or 4 of these rigs ahead of time with different lure types and sizes. That way you'll have a few choices and a better chance of hitting with a winning combo.
Okay, now for the bait. Each of the lures needs to be tipped with 2-3 baits. On the jig head, place a 1-2 inch strip of salmon or tuna and then a minnow with 1/2 of a night crawler stuck in its mouth and hooking the crawler in the minnows mouth with the jig head. On the single hook Mepps, again start with the strip of salmon/tuna and then add a combo bait. Maybe a minnow with a leech in its mouth. Lastly, on the Rapala put on a strip of salmon/tuna on the first treble hook and then dress the rear treble with maybe a leech and a crawler. Gary told me never to use a minnow on the Rapala, and that was good enough for me, so I don't.
That's pretty much it. Now you just cast the rig out and reel it back in just fast enough to make your lures all work properly. The presentation of multiple baits really throws off the gills and rock bass and the salmon/tuna should put a stop to the bullheads. I guess that the foreign smell must turn them off? It doesn't seem to bother game fish though. In fact, it's quit the contrary. I think that the multiple baits and placing bait in the minnows mouths really gets these fish charged up.
One more tip for the walleyes--- Heavily salted minnows. They're like fat women and chocolate. They can't stop eating them.
Well that's it for me. I sure would like to hear from you folks with your sugestions on how to avoid these nasty bullheads.
Good luck to everyone!
I don't always drink beer.
But when I do -
I drink Red White and Blue ;)Blind Robin
