December. Any Fish, Any Water, Any Time

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1 December Editors: Tom Raschke (tomraschke50@gmail.com) or Stan Nichols (sanicho1@facstaff.wisc.edu) Club Web site: Any Fish, Any Water, Any Time By Stan Nichols Any fish, any water, any time is the motto for Vibration Tackle s Echotail blade bait. Rob Blanchar, co-owner of Vibration Tackle along with his son Justin, gave us an introduction to the Echotail at the November meeting. Rob is a native of McFarland and lives on Lake Waubesa. It sounds like he does most of his lure testing, quite successfully, off his pier (in case you want to know it is next to the Green Lantern). Although blade baits are not new, the Echotail has a number of unique features. First is the tail. It is spear shaped so you can attach any number of plastic tails or even live bait to it. It has a number of holes drilled along its dorsal for different attachment points that allows for different lure actions. It also has a hole in the nose of the bait and two different holes on the ventral surface for different hook placement or for the attachment of spinners. My descriptions may be a little foggy. It is best to go to their web page ( to better view what I am talking about. The lure comes in many sizes from one-tenth ounce for panfish to eight ounces for muskies, northern pike and salt-water species. As a starter, Rob recommends the one-half once size for catching multiple species and he has caught ever thing from panfish to muskies on that size. A basic rigging is to first match the hatch as far as size of the lure to use. A plastic tail is inserted on the spear shaped rear of the lure. Then take the rear treble hook and hook one prong into the plastic (again check the website). Deciding which hole to hook the line takes some experimentation. Generally the rear holes give the maximum vibration, slower presentation, rides higher in the water column and works at slower trolling speeds. The front holes produce less vibration, are a faster presentation, and work better at faster trolling speeds. A forward hole also works best for rip jigging. The lure can be casted, trolled, or jigged. Generally Rob uses no-stretch line and a fluorocarbon leader. The fluorocarbon leader helps maintain a straight-line retrieve. If the lure isn t running true the tail can be bents slightly to allow it to run straight. For jigging Rob recommends using a stiffer rod, a cross-lock snap, and putting a barrel swivel above the leader to prevent line twists. Jigging can be subtle (use front holes) versus aggressive (use back holes). The jigging action can be stopped and the lure dead sticked as the tail will still vibrates, especially if there is some current. Jigging in rivers Rob recommends using the smallest size lure that stays on the bottom and using short snaps when jigging. If you mark a bait ball lift the lure Continued next page

2 Yahara Fishing Club and follow it back down through the ball. To mimic a dying minnow let the lure lay on the bottom with the tail quivering. This is an especially good technique for catching northern pike. If you are fishing in an area with a lot of snags, remove the front hooks. The lure runs nose down so it snags less this way. Also use heavier line. The lures sink at about 3-feet per second if you want to count down the lure. For trolling, dive curves are found on the Vibration Tackle website. In the summer a good technique on soft bottom is to let the lure plow through the bottom with an Uncle Josh s meat product attached. Generally the one-quarter to one-ounce lures are used in 3 to 5-feet of water. In 8 to 12-feet use the 1.5 to 2.5 ounce lures, in 12 to 20-feet of water use the 2.5 to 4-ounce lures. In water over 20-feet deep use the 4-ounce or heavier weight lures. Keep the rod tip low for a good hook set. Seasonally Rob recommends fishing shallow water, dark bottoms, north shorelines, docks, and emerging weeds in the spring. In summer try springs, weed pockets, large sand or mud flats, structure and reefs, open water and look at the entire water column. In the fall, go back to spring areas. The small Echotails can be used for ice fishing. Put grubs on the tail. A good winter technique is to drop the lure to the bottom and pound it to stir up the bottom. Because Echotails casts well it is a good lure to use for shore fishing when long casts are needed. There is a lot more information on the Vibration Tackle website than I am giving you here. Check it out! Rob can be contacted locally at: Warner Park Lagoon Management Alternatives As many of you may know, The Yahara Fishing Club, with Jack Hurst as a driving force, have been involved for many year with the WDNR and others to restore the lagoon. Click on the link below for the extensive report created by the WDNR for this effort. Link to the report: Warner%20Park%20Lagoon%20with%20Management%20Alternatives.pdf 2

3 O u t i n g s For those of you who don t already know, Tom Klein has stepped down as our outings coordinator after years of outstanding work and taking our club to the next level. So I am taking over and have some very big shoes to fill and need your help. I plan on preserving our most popular outings and adding some more including more local outings in the summer in addition to our on the water meetings. I took a poll of our previous outings from the last year at our last meeting but what I would like from all of you is recommendations. Please tell me your ideas for outings, tell me the lakes you want to fish, tell me the species and I will do everything I can to set it up. Also if you would like to help lead an outing our club would appreciate your help. Please send me an at jimannepan@aol.com or call me and leave a message on my phone at with any suggestions you have so we can plan out our year. December Outing: We have no formal outing planned but the hot bite right now is ice fishing for panfish on Mud Lake so please post on our yahoo group if you re looking for someone to go fish with. Get there now and don t worry about the crowds because the fish are in the weeds everywhere and also around the hole. January outings: We have our kids fishing day and our fishing derby. We will have another ice fishing outing for sure. February outing: I m in the process of setting up our annual whitefish outing in Sturgeon Bay. Hope to hear from you all! Jim Pankratz The Future of the Yahara Watershed On November 19th, UW-Madison s Water Sustainability and Climate Project (WSC) and Dane County s Office of Lakes and Watersheds co-hosted a workshop called Our Future Watershed and Well-being. It was a workshop specifically for the Watershed Network to discuss possible and desirable futures for the Yahara Watershed. It presented Yahara 2070, a set of scenarios that explore possible futures for the watershed, and facilitated discussion among workshop participants around what kind of future is desirable and what roles watershed groups play in achieving desirable futures. The goal of the event is to help leverage and enhance the work of watershed and related groups to ensure clean lakes and waterways for future generations by offering an innovative way to think and go about such work. I participated in the workshop. It was interesting. There were about 30 people there, almost all from regional planning agencies or the UW. The scenarios were dramatic extensions of what the watershed would look like depending on what kinds of climate change occurs and the population s responses. If anyone would like more information on this project or want to participate please let me know. Tom Raschke V.F.W. Post Lakeside St. Madison

4 D&S Bait, Tackle & Archery, LLC Winter2014 Fishing Seminar Schedule 1411 Northport Dr, Madison, WI (608) We re happy to announce our lineup for the Winter 2014 Fishing Seminar series! With local experts stopping in to speak on a variety of topics, it s a can t miss for every fisherman (and woman). Come on in on Thursday nights to catch some pointers. The seminars start at 7pm and are always free to the public. There s often special sales that run right after for those who want to pick up new gear or a new hobby. We ll be starting on the first week of December. The line-up is as follows: 12/04 Pat Klingelhoets - Nearby Panfish Hotspots 12/11 Mike Michaels - The Hunt for Gamefish 12/18 Roy Vivian - Panfish Tactics John Quam Work: Fax: john@quamsmotorsports.com 1896 Barber Drive Stoughton, WI

5 Notes From The Prez I m slowly coming to grips with the early arrival of winter, and the resultant premature ending of my 2014 open-water fishing season. No doubt many Club members are in the same boat, which as a practical matter means no boat at all. My fishing boat sat unused in my garage for a few weeks after the marina closed, before I gave up on the fishing season, winterized the boat, and took it out to storage. The batteries are hooked up to the float chargers, and the gear from the boat has been taken to the basement to await the arrival of spring. So, I guess a long cold winter is in store for us, and fishing is out of sight, out of mind for the next five or six months. But wait, not so fast! There are plenty of ways to keep fishing in our hearts and minds over the next few months. First and foremost, I intend to devote a lot more time this winter to my budding interest in ice fishing. I have a lot to learn, but with some basic gear and time to use it I should have plenty of incentive to get out on the ice on our area lakes and catch some fish. I hope to be able to tap into the considerable store of information on the subject which we have among our Club members, and to learn something more about where and how to catch fish through the ice. I m already looking forward to the ice fishing derby on Lake Waubesa on January 24th, and to another trip to Sturgeon Bay in February to catch some of those elusive Green Bay whitefish. And then there ll be a trip south to the Florida panhandle with my family in early spring and a couple of weeks of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact is that I ve spent quite a few pleasant hours over the past month working on getting my ice fishing equipment and my ocean fishing gear organized and ready for adventures to come! And, there s more. On deck in December is the first meeting of our Club s Board with the three new Board members elected at the November meeting. That will take place on December 9th, and will be followed by the Club s holiday/christmas party and pot-luck, with lots of great food to enjoy. Be sure to attend, and don t forget, we ll be introducing the recipient of the Pete Froland Award at the membership meeting, and Paul will be announcing the winners of the Club s 2014 Big Fish Contest. We can all look forward to our Club s Kids Ice Fishing Day on January 17th, helping local kids and their parents to learn to enjoy fishing in the winter months. Then February brings us a couple of my favorite fishing-related activities. The first is the Club s annual fund-raising auction of donated fishing gear, and the second is the Fishing Expo. I plan to spend a considerable amount of time sorting through my copious rods, reels, and tackle to see what I can donate to the auction (and simplifying life in the process, especially since I m running out of room to store all of that stuff!). On top of that, we can look forward as always to the Club s monthly meetings and having the opportunity to hear some really good speakers, and to talk about fishing with other club members. If that isn t enough, I know I can look forward to spending lots of time over the winter months catching up on fishing magazines, doing postponed maintenance on my fishing reels and other tackle, putting new line on my reels, reorganizing my tackle boxes and bags, and the like. And then there s the happy hours to be spent on the internet looking at websites to figure out how to make good use of the Gander Mountain, Cabela s, and Amazon.com gift cards that I ve been given over the past year (or perhaps the ones I will be fortunate enough to receive in the months ahead). Winter may have arrived, but I have no doubt I ll be able to keep fishing in my heart and my thoughts over the coming cold months, until it comes time in the spring to get out on the open water once again! Don t forget it s time for all of us to renew our Yahara Fishing Club memberships for Bring your checkbook or wallet to the December meeting. Our treasurer, Colleen, will be there and can take your dues payment (and your entry fee for the 2015 Big Fish Contest). Gard 5

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7 Transporting a boat into or through Minnesota? Beginning in 2015 a new trailer decal requirement is scheduled to start. The new law requires anyone who transports watercraft or water-related equipment like docks and lifts with a trailer in Minnesota to complete an aquatic invasive species training course. After completing the course, you receive a decal that must be displayed on your trailer. Please print Yahara Fishing Club Membership Form P.O. Box 3271 Madison, WI Name If family/youth member, additional name(s) Street City State Zip Phone - - Annual dues, from January 1 to December 31: Individual...$25 Family...$35 Youth Member... Free with other paid membership An Organization to Educate, Protect and Propagate the Interests of All Fishermen in the Yahara Basin Area Including all of Madison s Lakes 7

8 P.O. Box 3271 Madison, WI Check out our web page at: The next meeting is on Tuesday, December 9th The Board Of Directors meet at 6:00 pm, The General Membership meeting starts at 7:00 pm. Annual Pot Luck. Duffy Kopf will deploy a Nebulus flotation device. December Events Calendar of Upcoming Events December 9th, Regular club meeting at the VFW Hall. Bring a dish to pass. January Events January 13th, Regular club meeting at the VFW Hall. Speaker to be announced January 17th, Kids Ice Fishing Day - see page 6. January 24th, Ice Fishing Derby - see page 6. The Yahara Fishing Club s doors are open to EVERYONE, so invite a friend to the meeting! President - Gard Strother Vice Pres. - Phil James Treas - Colleen Marsden Secretary-Randy Winkleman Director - Jim Kloth Director - Paul Zoch Director - Larry Reed Director - Tom Wilke Director - Jesse Tougas