NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/760935
DECEMBER 2016 • NEBRASKAland 27 That night, Madeline and I set up a painting area in the living room and asked my wife to gather all of her fi ngernail polish. She brought out three shoe boxes full of every color imaginable. We agreed not to talk about her purchases as long as we didn't talk about mine, and Madeline and I started painting. We imagined the color of Jenny's jig and copied it, and then started painting lures in shades similar to bass fi shing crankbaits. I passed the other set of jigs along to Kevin for him to paint, and we put them to work the following week with excellent results. We cut 20 to 30 holes, lowered our lures until our lines went slack on the lake bottom, and then we reeled about a foot and began by using Jenny's stationary tactic. The fi sh didn't mind the cheaper jig imitations, and we caught more panfi sh that day than we ever had, hopping from hole to hole in an effort to fi nd schools of fi sh across the lake. If we didn't pick up a fi sh relatively soon, we moved. We used this approach for the entire morning, sharing information with each other on what holes had produced and which ones hadn't, what colors we were catching fi sh on and if we were jigging or stationary or something in between. However, we had also spent a fair amount of time fi shing holes that weren't producing, an act that Kevin had a counter for in the coming days. ELECTRONICS Scott Wade, a friend of Kevin's, has been ice fi shing since he was a kid, and he's the guy with the knowledge and gear: various ice fi shing rods and tackle, sleds, shelters and a Vexilar. I had seen a Vexilar in action before, the electronic machine that features a circular dial fi lled with various combinations of red, green, and yellow lights that notes not only the depth of the water, but also the fi sh that are under the transducer's cone angle. With the Vexilar's sensitivity set just right, an angler could even see his or her own jig raising and lowering on the dial. However, prices for a fi sh fi nder like this range from $300 to well over $1,000, an investment neither Kevin nor myself wanted to make quite yet. We learned the basics of the fi nder on Lawrence Youngman Lake in west Omaha, also applying what we had already learned, and caught more than 60 bluegills and crappie within our group of three adults and two teenage boys. Scott let us borrow his Vexilar for a few days. Kevin and I took the same approach we had used before, except for the addition of me dropping the Vexilar transducer into each new hole Kevin cut, making a quick judgment if I had marked any fi sh and moving to the next hole. After about 20 holes, Kevin would pause and look back to me. I'd point to the holes where I thought fi sh might be, and we'd divide and start fi shing. In every instance after this until the end of the season, when we marked fi sh we had strikes within the fi rst fi ve minutes using an assortment of wax-worm tipped, fi ngernail polish-painted, jig heads. Kevin and I ordered a new Vexilar of our own, splitting the cost ($250 apiece) for a device we would Kevin Greene watches the Vexilar while jigging for crappies and bluegill on a private pond in Sarpy County.