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I thought I had it going on. Within the first 30 minutes on Saginaw Bay, in the waning days of ice-fishing time, I had eight perch on the ice and had thrown back at least as many dinks.
Three and a half hours later, I left the ice with nine.
Sigh.
But all in all, I was OK with what happened as I’d learned something new. I was fishing with Jake Stanton, a 33-year-old Army veteran/college student who turned me on to fishing with a beaded spoon and simple pole. No reel, just a length of bamboo with six-pound test high-visibility line.
“We’re going to fish like barbarians,” he said as he handed me a pole. “I was told that once in Canada because I fish with a stick and a string. This guy said, ‘Man, you fish like a barbarian.’ |
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“That’s how I learned how to fish and I’m not going stop now. From the time I can remember, I got dropped off on the ice with an auger, a scoop, and a stick and a string, and I have a hard time changing.”
The drill is simple. You drop the spoon to the bottom, adjust your line so the bait is an inch or two off, then jig. When you get bit, you haul the fish out. That’s where the beaded spoon comes in; Stanton uses barbless hooks, so when the fish clears the ice, you can shake it off and drop the spoon back down immediately. |
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