I added a video,,,,,,,,,,, Fish decoy works!


RL,
Thanks for your input. This was the very first fish I speared and I'm already making some changes. I played with my seating options, spear resting position and just how the decoy was suspended.

I did in fact begin resting the shaft on my shoulder with the points stuck on the far side of the hole. I have the spear retrieval paracord hanging in loose loops stuffed between the roof support rods and the canvas. That has worked great to keep to cord out of the way yet allow it to feed out smoothly as needed. Not sure I'm entirely comfortable with the business end of the spear across the hole. I'm considering a bracket which would engage the spear at the upper end of the head where the tines all meet. Said bracket would be positioned on my side of the hole and suspend the spear head just below the waters surface. The spear would release towards the center of the hole, with just a slight movement away from the bracket. Still working this over in my head before making a prototype.

I hadn't thought about using beans or gravel. Right now I'm dropping egg shells and it is working quite well. I moved once and the bottom had medium short weed growth, which allowed the egg shells to filter down among the weeds, making the shells in effective. Any suggestions to add contrast or lighten up in this scenario or is it better to shift location?

Unless I expand to new locations, I don't expect to be spearing in anything over 8 to 10 foot of water. The lake I am on ( my friend has property there) is stained and visibility is limited even under the best conditions. Shallow water is one of the reasons I made the decisions I did when building my spear.

Right now I am in the process of modifying how I attach my decoy string to the hub shelter roof support and allow for adjustment in the horizontal plane. Got it figured out just need to build it. I was using a rattle reel with a spring clamp which hung straight down from the hub support rod. No way to adjust the position with out moving the shelter for position. Going to mount the rattle reel using something other than the spring clamp.

My only wish now, is that this is something I could do in my own home state.
 
Dani said:
That's really cool Dave. I hadn't ever heard of this form of fishing before you posted your decoys and video. Does it work as well when the water can't be walked upon? Do people spear during the summer?

Yes and no. [sly] In Minnesota the Pike spearing season runs from November to February, which means most folks do this thru the ice. Rough fish have different season dates in Minnesota.

In Iowa, only rough fish only can be speared (or shot with a bow and arrow). My experiences with this, have always been in open water during the warmer months, especially in the spring. As a youth, I would shoot carp with my bow, then trade them with the folks fishing from the banks, for adult beverages. [whistle]

Some folks will spear carp here from a boat in open water during the winter. Spearing open water during the winter is good because all the sediment settles out of the water in the winter months when the ground is frozen. Smoked carp can be good and I've made several batches back in the day.
 
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Cool video Dave. That looks like fun! The decoys swims excellent. I seen your comments about spearing rough fish here in IA. That was always a big part of winter fun during my youth. Congrats on all of the hand made items coming together and resulting in success.
 
Tod, let me know when you want to go, friends and neighbor take their vacation to go sit in a shanty staring down a hole for days on end. Neighbor has speared one since I have know him, one friend has been going the last 5 plus years, never thrown the spear.
 
fun video Dave. RL Ligman, do people fish for whitefish with hook and line? It is not a fish that is present to any degree out east. I have eaten them before, they are really good.
 
greg setter said:
fun video Dave. RL Ligman, do people fish for whitefish with hook and line? It is not a fish that is present to any degree out east. I have eaten them before, they are really good.

Speciation in the whitefish complex occurred at the foot of Pleistocene ice sheet. Consequently, they are quite plastic genetically. As a direct result hybridization has occurred, primarily within the Cisco complex, as the stock densities declined due to overfishing and sea lamprey predation in the late 1800s. Lake Whitefish, Cisco complex, Kiyi, Bloater and Round Whitefish are essentially those species that remain endemic in the Great Lakes. Some folks argue that Kiyi are gone, too. from the lower Great Lakes.

Greg, the primary means of sport fisher take is hook and line fishery driven, usually via a single egg rigged hook on fluoro. line. I have caught an occasional lake whitefish while trolling inshore in both spring and fall, but they are difficult to land due to their fragile mouth parts. Tribal commercial fishers exploit lake whitefish and cisco via gillnets and trap nets in Treat of 1836 and Treaty of 1842 ceded waters, as well as lake trout caught as incidental catch. There even is a scuba/snorkel hand spear fishing effort during fall spawning season for lake whitefish off the piers.

Cisco are pretty dry as table fare and don't freeze well; best canned or pickled. . Lake whitefish and round whitefish are excellent smoked, baked, pickled, or broiled. Bloaters or "chubs" are good smoked. There is a seasonal fishery for cisco on the St. Marys River when they concentrate to follow the Ephemera and Hexagenia hatch as it slowly "walks' northward during late June and July; everything from fly rods to cane poles are employed.
 
Thanks for that RL, I'm always interested in different fish species around the country. It's not a fish angling literature is often written about.

 
When I was still working for MSU as a fish biologist, I presented a research paper at the American Fisheries Society meetings held in west Yellowstone, Montana. We rented a camper and drove out staying in a campground in west Yellowstone. Fished the west side of the park and northwest on the Gallatin and Cougar Creek drainages. We were stunned to see fly fishers tossing mountain whitefish up on the banks, treating them like trash fish. We caught some and filleted them up and served them mixed with trout fillets to a group of fly snobs one night. Interesting dinner with everyone wearing headlamps to cook and eat scattered around a couple of propane stoves. They couldn't tell the difference in taste in the dark...

Mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) are the direct relative of the Great Lakes Round Whitefish(Prosopium cylindraceum), a fish that is excellent table fare fried, broiled or smoked. I like them a litter better than Lake Whitefish smoked because they are not as greasy.
 
Here are some laser cut spears modified through time, made with a weighted shaft...you can follow his progression as he tunes his design over time. Deadly and a work of art along the Dillo Hinnenkamp or a Lee Moening weighted shaft spear design line. Dave you know far more about metal working than I do, what techniques is he using while building these?

https://www.facebook.com/...ars-716811798438253/

In case you missed the eBay auction price for his last spear....over $2,300 dollars for a rust blued walnut handled model with brass accents!

Here is his first effort...


View attachment D84621AC-B101-4CF8-8CCC-8E94B8740BD4.jpg


Gears turning yet, Dave?
 
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RLLigman said:
Here are some laser cut spears modified,,,,,,,,,,, Dave you know far more about metal working than I do, what techniques is he using while building these?

Gears turning yet, Dave?

RL

His first effort is very utilitarian, much like mine. [smile] As far as the process involved, obviously starting with a laser cut blank. Laser cutting is fast, efficient and is equivalent to band sawing a blank for a wood decoy.

Next step is rounding the decoy or rounding the edges of the laser cut spear head. Least effort scenario is just bring the points and the barbs to a sharp working configuration. Further effort would be to continue to smooth and radius the entire length of each individual tine.

Skeletonizing the head and radiusing the cutouts obviously reduces any tendencies for the spear to plane off course. At this point it may be a toss up as to which is a better method (a) start with a flat laser cut blank and turn it into fully round tines or (B) start with round tines, add barbs, bend the tines and weld/braze into a complete spear head.

It appears he is brazing the joints where the handle meets the spear head and also where the different handle sections meet. Using a larger diameter shaft section at the bottom is where the "extra" weight is generated and controlled by diameter and length of this section.

It appears he has used several methods for an exterior finish. He mentions both powered coating and shows a photo of hot bluing another spear. I'm sure a person could use any of the various finishes available for gun barrels.

I will say he has put a lot of effort into long gentle tapers and super smooth surfaces. The majority of this work would be labor intensive using abrasive flap wheels, files and buffing wheels. I would suspect that this adds more cosmetics than it does to actual function and I compliment him on the artwork aspect of his spears.

I would be interested to know what material he is using in his blanks and the thickness of the blank. I may contact him to see if he is willing to share that information.

As it turns out I am considering building myself a 2nd spear. I'd like to shorten my over all length by about 6 to 8 inches just for ease of use inside the size shelter I am using. Shortening the shaft will reduce my weight and thus, I will also use a larger diameter shaft section between the spear head and the main shaft. I'm also consider my options in increasing the blank thickness to add both a bit more weight and strength in the head and tines.

Another option for increasing tines strength without increasing diameter would be to case harden the tines. Case hardening would act like an exoskeleton but I need to check into the cost of the hardening powder.

Not sure I actually answered you question. Is there a specific point in his process you had a question about?
 
Great video and awesome to see the decoy work. Dave, if you ever want to chase pike, you should come east to Maine, where pike have been illegally introduced and are about as popular as Asian carp or zebra mussels in the Great Lakes. No size or bag limit.

The few people who target pike out here tend to catch and release only, or just leave the carcasses on the ice for the eagles, because it's just known as a food fish out here.

Spearing is not legal here, but we could probably get you a depredation permit if you promised to target only pike. The lakes around me were Ground Zero for the pike introductions, starting about 1980, and are just loaded with the toothy things. Your rig would work great at any of about a dozen lakes around me.

A quick note on lake whitefish. They were once a popular game fish here in Maine. They can be taken many ways, but a common one at one time was to target them on the surface with dry flies. They were also popular through the ice with either jigging gear or tip ups. They have become an official "species of greatest conservation need" here as populations decline. The culprit appears to be rainbow smelt, which are native in Maine, but were historically not widely distributed. Smelt have been spread far and wide, first by biologist who moved them around to support introduced populations of landlocked Atlantic salmon--also native, but also at one time very limited in distribution. Smelts have also been moved around by the bucket brigade of illegal introductions, mostly by people who wanted to make the fishing better by introducing a bait fish for brook trout or lake trout.

The smelts seem to be pretty close to slate wipers for lake whitefish, and fishable populations are rarer and rarer. One of my favorite days in fishing in Maine was taking a "Grand Slam" of lake trout, brook trout and lake whitefish while trolling a north country lake. The brook trout was about 19"; one of the lake trout was close to 10 pounds; but it was the whitefish that made my day. One of only two I've ever caught in Maine. The other came while nymphing a run in the outlet of a large lake. It was mixed in with a pile of 12" brook trout.
 
Jeff Reardon said:
Great video and awesome to see the decoy work. Dave, if you ever want to chase pike, you should come east to Maine, where pike have been illegally introduced and are about as popular as Asian carp or zebra mussels in the Great Lakes. No size or bag limit.

The few people who target pike out here tend to catch and release only, or just leave the carcasses on the ice for the eagles, because it's just known as a food fish out here.

Spearing is not legal here, but we could probably get you a depredation permit if you promised to target only pike. The lakes around me were Ground Zero for the pike introductions, starting about 1980, and are just loaded with the toothy things. Your rig would work great at any of about a dozen lakes around me.

A quick note on lake whitefish. They were once a popular game fish here in Maine. They can be taken many ways, but a common one at one time was to target them on the surface with dry flies. They were also popular through the ice with either jigging gear or tip ups. They have become an official "species of greatest conservation need" here as populations decline. The culprit appears to be rainbow smelt, which are native in Maine, but were historically not widely distributed. Smelt have been spread far and wide, first by biologist who moved them around to support introduced populations of landlocked Atlantic salmon--also native, but also at one time very limited in distribution. Smelts have also been moved around by the bucket brigade of illegal introductions, mostly by people who wanted to make the fishing better by introducing a bait fish for brook trout or lake trout.

The smelts seem to be pretty close to slate wipers for lake whitefish, and fishable populations are rarer and rarer. One of my favorite days in fishing in Maine was taking a "Grand Slam" of lake trout, brook trout and lake whitefish while trolling a north country lake. The brook trout was about 19"; one of the lake trout was close to 10 pounds; but it was the whitefish that made my day. One of only two I've ever caught in Maine. The other came while nymphing a run in the outlet of a large lake. It was mixed in with a pile of 12" brook trout.

We need a Vermont pike shooting thread to go with all this good stuff.
 
Jeff Reardon said:
Is pike shooting still legal? I'd heard it had finally been outlawed.

Well if so that was a missed opportunity:(. This time of year every year I get interested, but don?t follow through.
 
I think it was a mostly a spring thing. The pike come into the shallows to spawn right after ice out, and would be really vulnerable then.

And you are in luck, at least on Lake Champlain, you can still shoot pike, pickerel, bullheads, bowfin, gar and red horse.

Northern Pike--Shooting, hand-held spearing March 25 to May 25

http://www.eregulations.com/vermont/fishing/tables/

And here's your video--spearing and shooting both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY6FnzroUBE
 
Jeff Reardon said:
I think it was a mostly a spring thing. The pike come into the shallows to spawn right after ice out, and would be really vulnerable then.

And you are in luck, at least on Lake Champlain, you can still shoot pike, pickerel, bullheads, bowfin, gar and red horse.

Northern Pike--Shooting, hand-held spearing March 25 to May 25

http://www.eregulations.com/vermont/fishing/tables/

And here's your video--spearing and shooting both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY6FnzroUBE

'Yep, when they are in to spawn. I've always wanted to do it, but I always drop the ball on planning. I have a note to make some calls, maybe this year.
 
Jeff, I think it is a sure bet to state that native species population declines like that experienced by lake whitefish in Maine lakes are not simply a function of the introduction of one 'culprit" species- rainbow smelt. I also do understand that this is the drum TU often opts to beat to raise funds, but in nearly every instance there is a constellation of co-occurring environmental changes that contribute to the broader outcome.

https://www1.maine.gov/ifw/docs/fisheries-reports/2016/lakewhitefish_currentstatus.pdf


The author either opts to leave out, or fails to consider two co-occurring events that wracked poorly buffered lakes in the northeast in the 70's and 80's: 1.) Acid precipitation events from increased sulfur dioxide atmospheric concentrations. 2.) EPA mandated nitrogen and phosphorus emissions reductions resulting in marked dry fallout declines, with eventual concomitant declines in point source and surface runoff decreases in these two important nutrient classes as well.

Lake whitefish are benthic feeders, with a sub-terminal mouth that enables them to be efficient consumers of aquatic oligochaetes, fingernail clams, small gastropods, benthic invertebrates, and seasonally, non-pelagic fish eggs in oligotrophic systems. These systems are, by definition, not very productive. They also generally have low carbonate-bicarbonate buffering capacity making them highly susceptible to marked pH declines from sulfur dioxide inputs during spring/summer precipitation events, as well as that bound in snow pack and released, bolus fashion, during melt events during the course of a winter, as well as when snowpack loss occurs. Marked reductions in total productivity occurred during the interval the author fails to address as an adjunct driver to declines in lake whitefish stocks in many, but not all Maine lakes where Atlantic salmon and smelt were introduced. The loss of complete year-classes, as well as the resulting truncated age-class array through time of lake whitefish is prototypic of fish populations whose calcium metabolism is adversely impacted by acid precipitation driven shifts in pH. Yet, the author makes no mention of this...how odd.

The author does note that this interval was also noteworthy due to increased angler exploitation as sport fishers "discovered" lake whitefish as a sport fish. He makes one other very telling observation, by singling out one lake system which has sustained its lake whitefish population due to its "very rocky shoreline". As you are likely aware, acid precipitation impacted lakes are noteworthy for their enhanced light penetration,a secondary indicator of "lost" biogenic turbidity. I suspect that this particular lake system's rocky shoreline contributed significantly to preservation of adequate benthos populations to sustain lake white stocks due to the expanded surface area this type of substrate, combined with the expanded photic zone from the enhanced maximum depth of those wave-bands responsible for driving primary production via photosynthesis providing forage for macro invertebrates the lake whitefish exploit.

One of the marked but unforeseen secondary impacts of passage and enactment of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts in the late 1960s that has been recently documented extensively in the Great Lakes has been a decline in productivity of aquatic systems as dry fallout and point source inflow of N and P has markedly declined, along with the noteworthy declines of input rates of these two key nutrient classes via surface runoff as well. I suspect this trend is common in oligotrophic lakes in the northeast as well. In a fishery where sport fishing exploitation increased as productivity decreased in lake systems with already inherently low production at baseline does not bode well for the future of that fishery.

Noteworthy, too, in this overview is the complete lack of any consideration of adverse impacts that might be attributed to introduction of land-locked Atlantic salmon foraging on endemic lake whitefish stocks in these systems. Apparently, in Maine, hatchery origin Atlantic salmon feed solely on co-introduced smelt...with no need for secondary documentation that this actually occurred, nor consideration that these introduced salmon have contributed to lake whitefish stock declines. You folks are aware that a lake has the endemic capacity to produce a finite amount of fish biomass, annually and seasonally...when two non-native species are added, apparently only one of these can be construed as a causative agent in endemic fish stock declines? Does everyone who works in fishery biology in Maine have to have chronic "adipose fin disease" to get hired?

Yes, I also appreciate the ironic dichotomy of your reverence for shooting and consuming goldeneyes, while maintaining a high level of disdain for northern pike as table fare-fascinating.
 
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