When Jeff Sundin targets jumbo perch or slab crappie, he’s not scared to go big with his bait selections.

“If I’m fishing big perch waters, I want to use a big bait,” Jeff Sundin said as he unhooked a genuinely large Devils Lake perch. “It helps you get past the smaller fish and get the attention of the ones you really want.”

A northern Minnesota fishing guide who shifts his focus from guiding to play fishing, sport shows and other promotional work for sponsors (which includes a lot of ice fishing) every winter, Sundin was plying the famous perch waters of North Dakota’s Devils Lake with guide and fellow Lindy pro staffer Jason Feldner. Sundin was armed with a Frostee that most anglers would consider oversized for perch fishing, but it was paying big dividends.

Sundin actually began the morning with “walleye size” Slick Jig, and caught his first jumbo perch almost immediately. Then the perch turned finicky for everyone for a while, in large part due to a hard cold front that had come crashing through, so Sundin tried downsizing to a small Rattl’N Flyer Spoon before taking the finesse approach a step farther with a 1/32-ounce Lindy Ice Jig. When downsizing didn’t make a noteworthy difference in the catching action, he decided that he was at Devils Lake to catch its famous big perch, so he tied on his “old standby.”

Sundin’s standby for jumbo perch is a No. 4 Frostee Spoon (usually in a glow color), which he matches with a big live minnow. “I always hook the minnow near the tail because it never stops trying to swim away from the lure and that creates great action,” he said.  Sundin generally doesn’t jig his offering very hard, instead letting the minnow do the bulk of the-fish attracting work. However, he always experiments with presentations and he watches his flasher continually, allowing the fish to dictate his approach.

At Devils Lake, Sundin noticed that most strikes were occurring very soon after he dropped the bait down through the hole. After a while he begin reeling the spoon up several feet from time to time and dropping it back down to capitalize on the reaction bites that seemed to occur soon after the bait fell into the zone. The plan worked, and that became his default approach for the rest of the afternoon.

Sundin’s Frostee/minnow combo looks like it would be a mega mouthful for a yellow perch, but the perch have shown him again and again that it’s not too big for them.  He likewise sees the evidence of a big yellow perch’s hefty appetite when he uses chubs and sucker minnows to target big walleyes during the summer. It’s not at all uncommon for Sundin to catch a giant yellow perch on a bait that many anglers would consider too large to put down for walleyes.

Crappie Too

It might be worth noting that Sundin’s “big ideas” are not exclusive to yellow perch. He utilizes many of the exact same approaches for waters where crappie tend to grow shoulders. A crappie actually has a very large mouth when compared to other panfish, and even an average-sized crappie will nab a far larger offering than most anglers ever opt to offer when crappie are the target species.

For Sundin, the major deciding factor regarding the size of ice lure he’ll drop through a hole for crappie is the reputation of the lake. If he’s fishing waters that are known to yield slab-sized fish, he doesn’t mind drawing questioning looks from other fishermen. He likewise doesn’t mind waiting longer between bites as long as he believes that upsizing his offerings increases his chances of upsizing the crappie that he catches.   In addition to the larger sizes of Frostees and Slick Jigs, Sundin likes a 1/8-ounce Rattl’n Flyer Spoon for heavyweight crappie, and occasionally he’ll even dance a Lindy Darter with big crappie in mind

Time & Place for Everything

Despite an obvious willingness to buck norms in search of big crappie or perch, Jeff Sundin does not maintain a “go big or go home” mentality. He can jiggle a Lindy Ice Jig or twitch Micro Slick Jig with the best of them when a finesse presentation is needed to make fish bite.

As alluded to, Sundin doesn’t typically start big if he’s fishing in a lake that’s better known for fast action panfishing than for coughing out jumbos or slabs or if the big fish-bite hasn’t been happening. He matches his starting line-up with expectations. Likewise, he’s not too stubborn to change if everyone around him is catching fish, and everything coming through the ice is a little on the small end for the baits he’s been using.

It’s not all about big baits for big fish, though. There are times when the biggest perch or crappie in lake are much more inclined to eat something small and subtle. Usually that has to do with a hard cold front, recent heavy fishing pressure, or extra good visibility caused by very clear water and/or minimal snow cover on the ice.

For Sundin, though, the fish on the flasher are his biggest indicator. When fish keep showing up and giving his bait hard looks and then turning the other way, he begins making changes, and if conditions suggest that it might be a day for smaller offerings, he’ll scale back from his big stuff.  Often, that works. Other times, the bite is simply slow. In those cases, he’ll usually go back to a big Frostee, figuring that if he’s only going to catch a fish now and then, it might as well be a big one.

Devil’s Lake

Famous for its giant yellow perch, Devils Lake is serving up one of the best winters of ice fishing that guide Jason Feldner can remember. Perch of any length are incredibly fat in this highly fertile lake, and legitimate 2-pound perch don’t even turn heads in the bait shop.

Feldner normally begins and ends most ice-fishing days fishing for walleyes in fairly shallow water and spends the middle part of each day over deeper water, primarily targeting perch. Devils Lake also supports a big population of pike, which can provide furious action through the ice. That said, most fishermen who travel to this lake during the winter understandably have jumbo perch in mind. Devils Lake is located in northern North Dakota, so there’s normally good fishable ice at least through the end of March.

Making Plans?

Before you head anywhere to fish, be sure to check out Lindy’s Exclusive National Audio Fishing Reports. Jeff Sundin and Jason Feldner both contribute regular audio reports. Jeff Sundin also posts daily written reports about northern Minnesota on his website, jeffsundin.com. To learn more about fishing at Devils Lake, visit Perch-Eyes Guide Service.

What are you wearing today?

 
How many of you have heard your mother  or   sister  or  wife  talking with  a friend   maybe  about  a wedding or some day plans and ask each other,  ”so, what are you going to wear”?. If you are like me you think  to yourself  ( trust me, it is wise to think this  to yourself for real, too! ),  ”good God woman its only  an  hour  long  procedure to marry  off  that  fool, so what’s  is wrong with  jeans  and  a  ’I  hate weddings’ T-shirt?”.  It seems that women can put more thought into dressing than into practicality. After years of making my thoughts verbal and more years of learning how to keep my thoughts to myself, I just shake my head and walk away any more.

This same sort of scenario is posed upon each of us, though, when we hit the water….”What are you going to start with today?”. This is a very valid question and , unlike the one your wife asks her companions, one you cannot walk away from if you want to start the day off with some modicum of success. So…..what is the tag end of your line going to wear?

When I hit the drink I look at a number of things. Is the weather in a stable pattern? What were the fish hot on the last time? What is different about today than the last time? Is the water warmer? Did a color or profile pattern emerge that last trip out that might be a place to begin? I think of a ton of things. And then I do the obvious….I go to what was the best producer the last time out, regardless of the changes in weather and water. Why? I have to start somewhere and, sort of like the clothes issue, I don’t like to think about it that much. I’d rather just fish….and let them tell me what to use.

If the weather has been relatively stable, profile and size issues are going to be stable too. Changes in the color and retrieve are going to be your biggest challenge. I always go back to the presentation I was doing well on the last trip out. Once you find the fish and determine what they are like “bite-wise”, lots of variable can be employed.

Like those decisions that women belabor themselves with regarding dress, anglers too are going to be faced with some decision making challenges and maybe the biggest is going to deal with color, after it has been established what the fish want profile and action -wise. Any one ever seen their wife change clothes when company comes because some else is wearing a color that is close to what wifie originally had on? The rational is that with two women in the same room (more like city block) with ALMOST the same color of clothing is just too much color for that small of an area. The same will apply to fishing. Especially when crappies are being fished in a tight area. If too much of a certain color of plastic is working a school of them, they will get wary of that color quickly. So I do what I have learned from the girls….I change colors…..often. And I usually stay in the fish.

I don’t like to hammer on one spot with one color for a long time. I will fish it with one color, change color and then leave the spot after a bit. But I will come back to the spot later and do the whole color change thing again. Sometimes I can do this using just two colors all day. Sometimes I have to change up the colors four or five times.

I fish heavily stained water and my favorite of all baits, regardless of profile or action, will have purple body and chartreuse tail. And my favorite is based on what’s working for me at the time. If it worked three days ago, I will start with that as long as it has purple and chartreuse in it. But I will not stay stuck on this color pattern if I do not get into fish within 10 minutes. Those who have fished with me know of the plastics arsenal I drag along with me and know too that I will be digging through the color chambers in the box on a search until I find one that works. If I am forced to change profiles, I will start with purple/chartreuse regardless and then go through the gamut of colors again. I might, no…will, always end up with that which I stared with on the line.

So how many color patterns do you need? Go check out the wife’s/ girlfriend’s wardrobe closet and then the chest of drawers or sweater storage area. Got the picture here? I always preach about going to the lake prepared. Not only in
profiles and actions, but also in the color department. Why so many colors? I have seen where crappies are hitting great guns on an overcast morning on my beloved purple/chartreuse only to have the haze burn off and they quit.
Switch to a blue/chartreuse and ,bingo!, right back in fish. I have seen this progression go through as many as eight color variables in three hours, once starting with black/chartreuse and ending with a pink body and an orange tail!

That closet at home keeps the little lady of your life happy, so I say let her have it. Fill that sucka up honey! Those overflowing tackle boxes are my closet and her closet is my defense for what I have. My toys keep me happy and in the
fish. Now Ma has asked why I have so much tackle of the same colors. I explain that it is much like her closet. She doesn’t have just one pair of jeans in this color….she has nine. And she has six different brands of jeans, so go do the
math. And sweaters? Well, let’s just say there are some very bald sheep out there. But one in one color? Yea, right.

Part of the plastics challenge is color. In my opinion, no panfisherman can have too much of it. Profile choices and action choices … color choices all equate to a lot of tackle to carry, but I am prepared. In spite of that, time has taught me
what to start with. So what should you start your fishing day with? Go to your “go to” bait and begin. Make your adjustments based on what the fish dictate for the day beginning with that bait. It is OK to fashion your tackle after
the women, but if you don’t have a definite starting point, you’ll end up like the little lady standing in the closet for two hours wondering what to wear. That’s a lot of good fishing time, my friends.

 By: Tom “CrappieTom” Sawvell