Pineview 1/2/2017

[Giants05win]

Pineview report from last night..
* Fished from Sunset til 8:00PM
* Cemetery Point/Browning Point Area
* 43' of water
* Crappie were stacked on the bottom (10' layer of them)
* Used small tungsten jigs tipped with 1/2 of a meal worm
* Caught 30 fish (2 of us)
* 8" of clear solid ice with 3" of fresh snow on top (measured with a tape, not an estimate)
* Note that the smallest fish we have been catching are similar in size to the larger fish from years past. 10" to 12" average size....no dinks..

As good as the fishing is it is still tough for "kid fishing". The bite is so light most don't even know they are being bit..my younger kids couldn't catch any. Alot of "hooking and passing" the rod needed.
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[isda]

Perfect this is good to know thanks for the report
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[wiperhunter2]

Great report, the best I've read, especially on the size of the crappie.
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[SkunkedAgain]

Thanks for a great report, did the fish stay under you or did they flux in and out? That size report does sound really good... I like a 12" crappie... Thanks J
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[lakepowellnut]

Those are some great eating size crappie. Thanks for the great report.
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[Giants05win]

especially nice because they are essentially "committed" to the stringer when you bring them up from 43'...no releasing them...

Also to note, had a strong mark on the flasher @ 30' or so..it was there all night...tried to get it to bite...no luck. Thinking maybe a Muskie hovering over the swarm o' Crappie?
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[wiperhunter2]

I bet it was a musky but strange it stayed there the entire time.
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[Jmorfish]

That was probably the Ghost of the Pineview Pirate!! He drowned out there in that very area you were in about 100 years ago, and if you EVER see him down there again, you need to leave right away, call me up right away, and tell me again what you were using using for bait!! Guluk...
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[Reddog1988]

I think everyone needs to learn how to vent a swim bladder on a fish. It doesn't hurt them and will allow you to release them if you are catching them in deep water and don't want to keep them.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]"Fizzing" is not always the answer with crappies. They also suffer from having their eyes distended from a sudden pressure drop.

The best remedy is using a weighted "descender" to send them back down to the depths where they will repressurize. It only takes a few seconds to send them back down and they have a high recovery rate. You can watch them on sonar and verify they swim off after you pull it free at the bottom. And I have never seen one float back to the top.

Attaching a picture of one I make from a sinker and a piece of wire. Also attaching a pic of one attached to a crappie ready to send back down.
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[Reddog1988]

I have never had a problem fizzing. Just make sure its done properly.
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[TubeDude]

[quote Reddog1988]I have never had a problem fizzing. Just make sure its done properly.[/quote]

[#0000FF]Bingo. Properly is the magic word. Since each species of fish is different there are different methods for safely releasing the gasses of decompression for each species.

Simply poking a knife blade into the side of a fish is more likely to puncture vital organs than to save it from the "bends".

If you don't have a suitable needle or other tool, or if you don't know where to poke, then you should either keep the fish or use a descender.

Perch are easy and they are tough. You can just poke a hook point into the distended air bladder protuding from their mouths and they will be able to dive back to the bottom with no lasting harm. And that tissue heals quickly. But...to repeat...crappies and some other species suffer tissue and circulatory system damage to their eyes or other organs when subjected to rapid decompression.


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[RockyRaab]

Yup, crappie are more fragile. On a trip to P'View this fall, kentofnsl and I used a descender of his to return crappie to the depths. But some of them popped back up after a few minutes, to become gull food. Invariably, they'd surface 50 feet or so from the boat, and be scarfed up.

It wouldn't surprise me if a few more of them got scarfed by muskie before they got to the surface, as well.

Crappie are prolific, so it probably doesn't hurt the fishery to lose smallish ones to "the bends" but if all you're catching is small ones from the deep, a compassionate angler would move or target a different species.
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[El_Matador]

Thanks for the info in PV, I'm hopefully going to be there on Friday. I'm happy to hear the size is a little better this year.
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[Jedidiah]

Kinda makes you wonder if the big shape hovering above the school and the bends-y fish are related. Bet there's some muskies in there that have learned to snarf up the stunned crappie. Think it would be illegal to set up a crappie rig with a size 2/0 hook trailing it, then pause that crappie in muskie territory on the way up? Hmmmmm.
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[Troll]

Yes, I do think it would be illegal. Crappie cannot be used as bait in Pineview, nor any water in the state. It is a gamefish. Perch? Yes, in some waters and Pineview is one of them.

Nice rig Pat. very useful
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[TubeDude]

Think it would be illegal to set up a crappie rig with a size 2/0 hook trailing it, then pause that crappie in muskie territory on the way up? Hmmmmm.

[#0000FF]Knew a guy back in the heyday of Jordanelle...when there were some mega smallies in there. They often followed small perch on your line and even smacked them sometimes. This guy used the rationale that even though it was illegal to use live bait, there was no regulation on how fast you had to retrieve a perch hooked on your line. So, he rigged a jig with some worm, hooked a perch and then kept it "in the zone" until something larger chomped on it for lunch.

He did catch some big smallies...and released them of course. He did observe the regs at that time for no smallies over 12 inches. But the CO that busted him for "slow retrieving" the live perch did not seem to agree with his misunderstanding of the regs on live bait. Getting accurate legal interpretations can be costly.
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[Giants05win]

If you fish for Crappie in 40+ feet of water you best just plan on putting them in the bucket. I don't think promoting "field surgery" on fish is the answer. Fizzing has mixed opinions even from biologists. Fizzing ain't going to help those eyeballs either....reel em up, throw em in the bucket and go get another, you aren't going to dent the population....the place is literally carpeted with them. The size is good on all of them this year so it shouldn't even be an issue. If you want to catch and release i would recommend you pick another species/body of water. Pineview needs more "killing and grilling" and maybe the size will get even better.
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[Jedidiah]

But surely the reason I can't catch either my preferred size of fish on any specific reservoir is because other people aren't releasing either the size I like, the smaller fish that need to grow into the size of fish I like, or the really big fish that lay the eggs of the species of fish I like. Surely also I shouldn't be expected to find fish and should be able to pick any body of water at any time and catch as many fish I want for whatever purpose without realizing that the ecology of a body of water prevents cookie cutter fish being available virtually everywhere in great numbers.

I'm getting better at keeping the snarkiness under wraps but I don't think I'll ever be cured.
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[Giants05win]

And surely I can choose not to post reports on fishing success with this board, lesson learned. Happy fizzing to ya.
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