Mid-winter panning for "gold"

I have fully come to appreciate the fact that there are 3 kinds of perch....dink perch which are 8 inches or less....big perch which are 8-14 inches....than there are JACK PERCH which are 14-20 inches.  For the past three years I have been listening to those experienced with consistently catching the jack perch on Seneca Lake.  One of their  "secret weapons" is called the Oak Leaf Grub.  

Oak Leaf Grub

 This is a bait that is difficult to find and is the subject of much fishing folklore.  You can only find these grubs during the winter months as they become Crane Flys.


Today, with the warm weather, Jake, John, Dave, and I took John's Bad Boy and headed out to the woods to see if we could find these elusive critters.  We got a mile into the woods and the Bad Boy got stuck a few times too many.  The last time it got so hung up in the deep snow that we decided to leave it until tomorrow as there is supposed to be a big meltdown.  From there we hiked another mile, Jake and Dave in their waders, to our destination.   To our surprise the stream was frozen.  We thought the recent warm-up would have had it open.  Jake and Dave eventually punched a large enough hole through the stream that we were able to do our work.








A lot of work, but a lot of fun too.