Taylor Mellenthin Striker Ice’d this blimp bluegill out west (Dakotas?) on a 5mm Acme Tungsten Jig and plastic combo. Crazy tall:

Few thick reasons why Garett Svir’s guide service earned the name Slab Seeker Fishing…including “Walleye Willie’s” (left) mega 14.75″ Otter Tail County, MN bruiser:

Pretty sure @mountain_anglerss’s lucky fishin’ hat should come mandatory with every Eskimo pop-up shack — love it. That freshwater peacock bass isn’t half bad either, wowza!

– That’s a fired-up Brad Hawthorne talkin’ ’bout the over-harvest of big bluegills in MN. A topic/species that’s near and dear to his heart…’cept for when he holds ’em way out for the camera. 😉

The AnglingBuzz crew rounded up a handful of ice-fishing pros — some of the biggest names in the biz! — and asked them what they thought upper Midwest panfish regs should really be. For sure worth a watch/listen:

And the answer is, “yes”…I did put Dave Genz in the thumbnail twice…’cuz he’s the dang “Godfather of Ice Fishing!” Also because there was an odd number of pros and it made my insides hurt that it wasn’t symmetrical otherwise lol.

Anytime you talk about tweaking regs, folks get a little “passionate” (lol).

My 2 cents: Something needs to be done to protect those big pannies. Fishing’s about more than just filling your bucket. If you’re only in it for the meat, it’d be way cheaper to hit the grocery store….

Q: Do you still play golf even though you can’t eat the golf balls?

Current MN limits are 20 sunfish, 10 crappies and 20 perch. Das alotta fishhh! Not really my place to say what people should keep to eat…but do know that just a few schmedium-sized pannies is more than enough to feed our fam.

I’d be in favor of reducing the limit to say 5 or 10 sunfish, 5 crappies and 10 jumbos.

Some lakes have a stunted population of fish and may need some of ’em taken out. On those lakes it wouldn’t really make sense to drop the daily bag limit. That’s one reason I think it’s even more important to get some sort of a special slot in place to protect those bigger fish.

Something along the lines of say 1 sunfish over 9″ per day — and 1 crappie over 13″ — would still allow a trophy to be kept for guys that don’t believe in replicas.

Love me some special-reg lakes! My guess is there isn’t more — or any state-wide slots on panfish — because it’d be a nightmare for the DNR to manage. Would almost need to be done on a lake-by-lake basis too.

Let us know what you think ’bout all this by leaving a comment under the AnglingBuzz video. *Keep it friendly!

Hear a lot about “March madness” on Manitoba’s Lake Winnipeg, but the reality is they smack ’em all season long. @haarsma01 and @teal_erin have been doing a killer job of turning the big marks on their Humminbird ice units into real life big, green giants. Here’s 1 of their 8 fish over 26″ on the day. #Doin’Work

TW fan Chase Miller thwacked this stout 28.25-incher jigging a big 1/2-oz Northland Buck-Shot Spoon in the Lake Superior harbor:

Fish-head Jon Thelen’s been lighting ’em up [!] on Lake Kabetogama with an 1/8-oz “orange tiger” Lindy Glow Spoon. Great way to end the day, dude! #CherryOnTop

Good ol’ Devils Lake, ND has been kicking out quantity and quality, like Frank Baker’s 11.14-lber plucked out of a Woodland Resort permie. One of my fave places visited last year — they have ice-fishing packages that start at just $99, all the way up to baller (lol) status. #SlaunchesInSlippers

The night shift paid off BIG for @bshinski, cashing in on everyone’s favorite kind of gold with a PK Spoon in 22′:

Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba is famous for its portly “greenback” walleyes that loooooooove to eat rattlebaits. The lake is 258 miles across with little structure, so finding walleyes requires a different approach. Read Doug Stange’s full write-up here, few excerpts below on how Roger Stearns gets it done:

> “When we’re starting from scratch, our initial moves are about a mile. Drill some holes and monitor your electronics as you fish. If we don’t catch or mark a fish in 15 minutes we move another mile.

> “Once we find fish, we need to read their attitude. Say we’re marking and catching some fish, but they’re tight to the bottom or only 1/3 of them bite…a small move is in order, say 40 yards or so.

> “We’re dealing with neutral to negative fish that are just milling along. They may have just fed or they’re waiting to feed when they find baitfish. It often takes these fish 3 hours to move 200 yards.”

Greenbacks are like:

> “To follow fish like these we usually leave one guy behind as we move. If we get into them again and they’re biting better, the stay-behind guy moves to our location. Occasionally, the school reappears under the angler that was left behind.

> “Say two of us put 15 fish on the ice in about an hour. If we’re not marking many baitfish, we probably hit the tail end of a baitfish collision. Suspended fish are hunting fish — and while they may stay in an area for a time, they’re likely to be moving.

> “When we move in this instance it’s at least 75 yards, sometimes 150. Again, the activity or lack thereof below is all unfolding on our electronics and we’re always trying to get a sense which direction the fish are drifting.

> “The beauty of fishing on Lake Winnipeg is that you never know when an even bigger school of fish is going to move in from a different direction.”

Great info! And lots more of it in the full write-up.

Side note: I was hipped to a new-ish product that might change the way people go about tracking down greenbacks (thx Rob McDougall!)….

Company called Angler’s Edge Mapping just dropped a Lake Winnipeg 2019: Early Ice map chip that has (finally!) mapped out a decent chunk of Lake Winnipeg’s south basin…has the northern chunk of the Red River too:

Heads up, the chip only works with “modern Lowrance units.” Haven’t seen one in person yet, but I’ve got one on order for our next trip up. Will keep you posted once I have the chance to try it out.

If I lived closer than 7-ish hours away, I would’ve been all over the south basin (during open-water) making my own maps with Humminbird AutoChart Live. Know some guys have done it…and you could never offer them enough $$$ for the data.

‘Cuz she aint froze over everywhere….

Will Nalley’s been leaning into the St. Lawrence River walters with Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow Walleye Deep Divers. For sure need to get my hands on that “purple wonderbread” color:

Case you’re too distracted by that ^ perky fish:

Diggin’ the “solar” color Bagley Balsa Diving Stick attached to the face of this David Shmyr Jr guided razorback:

Guess I’m a sucker for any of those “wonderbread” type of patterns…probably ‘cuz the fish are too: