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the Nipissing experience


Joeytier

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Very nice Joey. Way back when the in-laws had a cottage at Bear Creek (70's through 89') we would head up there a few times a month and take vacation and fish for a week. A Nipissing tip icefishing. Be very quiet in the hut or the clam. We would be pulling them in regularly and Big Janko would come storming in with his size 12's and 90 db yap and the catching stopped, immediately for at least an hour, sometimes for the rest of the day. Stinger hooks on jigs both winter and summer on Nip. We used to SCUBA in summer and those Nip Pics would almost always nip at the tail, suck it in and hold the minnow, spit it out with scales floating in the water then take it head first. If you think she got off don't move the bait or drop it back down a foot and she may hit it again. It's good to know exactly how much line is retrieved with 1 revolution of your reel.

The strangest thing I saw was where big Pike and smaller Walleye were feeding together on small baitfish and small perch ignoring each other. I was told that never happens, not.

Edited by Old Ironmaker
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On 10/02/2018 at 2:20 PM, Old Ironmaker said:

A Nipissing tip icefishing. Be very quiet in the hut or the clam. We would be pulling them in regularly and Big Janko would come storming in with his size 12's and 90 db yap and the catching stopped, immediately for at least an hour, sometimes for the rest of the day.

 

If we're marking fish without commitments, sometimes a good rip around in the truck or sled definitely wakes them up.  I just can't believe that a walleye is affected by clumsy footsteps in a hut on top of 31" of ice, 32 feet down LOL

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8 hours ago, Joeytier said:

If we're marking fish without commitments, sometimes a good rip around in the truck or sled definitely wakes them up.  I just can't believe that a walleye is affected by clumsy footsteps in a hut on top of 31" of ice, 32 feet down LOL

Joey you would be surprised then that fish will scatter in 30' of water, I can't say without a doubt below the ice but can say for certain they do in open water. Many years of diving and snorkeling prove that. We shut down the boat motor and use the elec. or drift into position on jumbo perch grounds. If some nim nod throws an anchor overboard into Perch grounds you will watch your screen clear. 

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2 minutes ago, Old Ironmaker said:

Joey you would be surprised then that fish will scatter in 30' of water, I can't say without a doubt below the ice but can say for certain they do in open water. Many years of diving and snorkeling prove that. We shut down the boat motor and use the elec. or drift into position on jumbo perch grounds. If some nim nod throws an anchor overboard into Perch grounds you will watch your screen clear. 

Can confirm. 

About 5 years ago I was working in Edmonton and we were trying to find out how far down the Pembina river the Arctic Greyling were coming. So we got to go fishing for em (one of the coolest jobs I ever got to do)

As a bonus, some of our friends that didn't want to fish but wanted to SCUBA were scoping out where the fish were hiding (talk about advanced sonar). 

Anyways, a buddy of mine is fishing about 30 feet down from me, hooks into a greyling, which proceeds to jump 3 feet in the air. We all shout 'WOAH!'. Immediately my co-worker in SCUBA gear about 10 feet north of where I am pops her head up and says 'If you guys want to catch any more fish today, keep the noise down.' I ask her what she means and she says I had a huge school of mountain whitefish coming down the river towards my bait. Soon as she hear us say 'WOAH!' they all scattered and went into hiding in the timber. 

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Nice video. Makes me feel like I'm out there.

The Humminbird helix is great. Is that the CHIRP version? I came pretty close to buying a helix ice just yesterday. Ended up settling for a Hook4 CHIRP.

Question, how often do you see fish farther up in the column? I'm wondering how many fish are missed by zooming into the bottom column OR using too narrow of a band. 

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5 hours ago, Sterling said:

Nice video. Makes me feel like I'm out there.

The Humminbird helix is great. Is that the CHIRP version? I came pretty close to buying a helix ice just yesterday. Ended up settling for a Hook4 CHIRP.

Question, how often do you see fish farther up in the column? I'm wondering how many fish are missed by zooming into the bottom column OR using too narrow of a band. 

As far as I know, every Helix uses CHIRP technology.

These shoals are full of herring, so we see tons of marks in the upper half of the water column.  I keep a split screen on my unit, one zoomed in on bottom few feet.  Usually won't mark intended quarry up high but somedays you have to work them way up the water column to get a strike.

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1 hour ago, Joeytier said:

As far as I know, every Helix uses CHIRP technology.

These shoals are full of herring, so we see tons of marks in the upper half of the water column.  I keep a split screen on my unit, one zoomed in on bottom few feet.  Usually won't mark intended quarry up high but somedays you have to work them way up the water column to get a strike.

Yeah, I see big arches in the upper column in the summer but I don't think this applies through ice. My buddy has a flasher that is either zoomed in or out, no secondary chart. Might not be a big deal.

The unit I was looking at was a G1. Those don't have CHIRP. The newer units (G2) have CHIRP sonar and CHIRP DI. 

Be wary of DI - I tried it through ice and was missing arches. That's because DI is a narrow, oval shaped sweep meant to be used on a moving boat. Doh.

With CHIRP sonar you're golden though. Based on your video it seems like you're capturing everything.

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55 minutes ago, Sterling said:

Yeah, I see big arches in the upper column in the summer but I don't think this applies through ice. My buddy has a flasher that is either zoomed in or out, no secondary chart. Might not be a big deal.

The unit I was looking at was a G1. Those don't have CHIRP. The newer units (G2) have CHIRP sonar and CHIRP DI. 

Be wary of DI - I tried it through ice and was missing arches. That's because DI is a narrow, oval shaped sweep meant to be used on a moving boat. Doh.

With CHIRP sonar you're golden though. Based on your video it seems like you're capturing everything.

My unit is the first generation, I just looked...no CHIRP.  Having said that, I've never hooked a fish I didn't mark first.  Incredible detail...I can only imagine the new ones.

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22 hours ago, Joeytier said:

As far as I know, every Helix uses CHIRP technology.

These shoals are full of herring, so we see tons of marks in the upper half of the water column.  I keep a split screen on my unit, one zoomed in on bottom few feet.  Usually won't mark intended quarry up high but somedays you have to work them way up the water column to get a strike.

The helix ice only released a chirp ice deucer this year...so unless your set up is brand new for this season your deucer doesnt support chirp. From the looks of it, your helix is also a Gen 1? as such when humminbird did the ice fishing specific update this fall, they didnt include the gen 1 models on the update.

Helix is still the best bang for buck on the market right now IMO.

 

The comment about fish in the water column, we get pike and crappies that come outta nowhere at 10 FOW while fishing 30+ all of the time. I would never zoom specifically on the bottom, you are probably missing fish!

 

sweet vid joey, you got me pumped for this weekend!

Edited by AKRISONER
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