We may be approaching Halloween, but there sure is nothing scary about the fishing right now.  It is as predictably good as it gets in the Great White North in late October.   

The only question is whether to go out for walleyes, bass or crappies.  Then again, why not chase all three?  

As I reported in my last blog, that is what my 10-year old grandson, Liam and I decided to do when we met up recently with Manitoba based buddies Tom VanLeeuwen and Mike Schamber.  

And while the results were stellar - they didn't come without some hard work out on the water.  That is because the late fall, cold water phase is a period of consolidation.  As the water temperature plummets, the fish school up in ever bigger wolf packs, so some anglers find it a hit-or-miss time of feast or famine.  

That is not, however, how we look at it.  And here is the reason why:  we never put a lure into the water until we know we're on fish.  Indeed, Tom spends more time with his lure out of the water than any other angler I know, yet he probably catches more fish.



It is not a contradiction.   

We simply believe that you’re wasting your time fishing where there aren’t any fish.  As a result, we never drop our baits over the side of the boat unless we're absolutely certain there is a pod of fish below it.  

Case in point: this same week a few years ago, Van Leeuwen and I searched across a moderate size lake we had heard harboured huge black crappies.  We launched the boat that day at 9:00 o’clock in the morning and didn't turn off the motor and start fishing until 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon.     

I kid you not!  

Over the intervening five hours, we pretty much trolled the entire 20-miles of shoreline, slowly sliding out over deep water, zigging back over the shallows and zagging over every depth in between.  We motored across large bays and tiny coves, sauntered over main lake points and submerged reefs.  We even meandered across the flat basin.  And for five hours we never took our eyes off the sonar screen, looking for the Christmas tree markings that pinpointed schools of suspended crappies.  

I know it sounds like insane amount of work, and trust me, it was. But, when we finally found a colossal crappie concentration, we pitched out a marker buoy, dropped down our jigs and caught giant slabs seemingly at will.   



So, not surprisingly, that was our strategy the other day when we had the two boats out on the water.   

And get this: I have two Simrad NSS 7 sonar/GPS units in my boat, while Tom has three Lowrance HDS units in his backtroller.  He uses one to relay back traditional sonar information about water depth, water temperature, bottom composition and of course, fish, another for side scan/down scan purposes and the third, set on GPS to accurately trace the path of the boat so he can see that he has traversed every inch of an underwater structure before he writes off the spot.     

It is deadly efficient and effective.  

Indeed, using what has become our trademark search-until-you-find-‘em strategy, we enjoyed a fabulous day of fishing.  But, it was only because we didn’t pick up our rods at a single location until we knew we were "on fish".  

Mike and Liam got the two biggest walleyes, a pair of 29-inch, nine pound giants.  Liam also would have caught the biggest smallmouth, had I been a little quicker with the net.  

I was certain it was another big walleye that had his rod tip bent over dangerously, and I was waiting for it to come up slowly and wallow on the surface.  Instead, a huge smallmouth - at least 5-pounds - suddenly streaked to the surface, came flying out of the water and tossed his hook.
   

He still won't let me forget it was the biggest bass he has ever hooked, even though he is only ten years old.  

Still, it's indicative of the results that flow from putting the odds all in your favour and not fishing until you actually mark fish.  

One more thing to consider: turn off the ridiculous Fish ID option on your sonar and rely exclusively on the much more accurate fish arcs to tell you what you need to know.  And turn up the sensitivity or gain on your unit, as high as possible yet, still providing good detail.  I also like to max out chart and ping speeds.   

Finally, slide a blank SD card into the spare slot, if you have one, on your sonar unit and record the day’s activity so you can later review it on your PC.   You'll be surprised at the subtle things you often see at home, that you missed out on the water.  

Do these few simple things and you'll see why the fishing is so scary good around Halloween.