Behind the Scenes Look at "Wilderness Crappie"
We’re going on a wilderness crappie run tomorrow, want to come? That is how quickly some plans come together. Dave Genz and I were filming around Orr Minnesota. Late in March, this area of Northern Minnesota is known for large bluegills, but we were not catching a thing. Dave Genz, also known as Mr. Ice Fishing got a cell phone call from his friends about a hot crappie bite with two pounders being caught!
I of course jumped at the chance before fully understanding that it was 15 MILES from the nearest road across miles and miles of ice, bog and woods. We were told simply to respect their lake and not bring along a GPS or tracking system. This was their personal monster crappie “honey hole” and they didn’t want to change that.
They knew that after the airing of this show, Genz will get hundreds of e-mails asking where we were fishing and now Dave and I can say without lying that he hasn’t got the slightest idea of where we were fishing. Almost to ensure we will never again find this lake on our own, it was snowing like crazy. Visibility was only about 1/8th of a mile and it stayed that way for the entire day. Filming was made difficult because of all the snow, but the size of the fish made the trip worth it and knowing you will never be back to catch these fish again made this day a special one for Dave and me.
We were guided by Dave’s Friends Dave Bechik and Doug Piekarski. They both live in International Falls and have become experts at finding these out of the way crappie hotspots. The north-county ethic of hard work sure describes these two guys. They are true “jack-pine” savages in every sense of the word. True outdoorsmen who are at home in the wilderness and embrace the challenge of going to places the normal angler would never think of traveling.
They made this adventure fun and easy. They only brought the needed gear and safety equipment if something did happen. One thing I learned about this type of fishing trip, if you plan for the worst, you spend less time worrying and more time focusing on catching fish. This is the real reason you are here in the first place. So many times the trips I go on are overshadowed by the things that might go wrong, that you never have any fun fishing.
If you put a clock to it, we fished for only four hours total. We caught about thirty fish total, some small, some average and several true trophy size fish. Dave and Doug drilled holes that spanned a few hundred yards in their search for a large pod of fish, but it was never found. Maybe it was the weather, but fish that were schooling here before were gone. Now the fish were in lose packs of two or three and you had to be fast to get bait down to them. The Vexilar was the perfect tool for finding and then catching these suspended fish. We would walk, check a hole for a suspended fish targets and within ten seconds, move to check another hole.
The trip went perfectly and the sleds worked well. I’m still not a big fan of zipping sleds through slush, but it was unavoidable going on and off the lakes in March. Were the crappies two pounders? Well check out the photo and you decide…. One thing is for sure, if they asked me to go again, I’d do it in a heart beat!
