There is Ultralight, Then There is Ultralight Fishing85271

No one reading this has ever fished ultralight. Ultralight would be the ability to hook a single bit of algae or just one hydra to a hook to catch a newly hatched fish, still bearing it's egg sack.

Yes, this would require a microscope as well as a bioengineered hook with fishing line just a single cell thick. Fishing like this would also require a very delicate hook set. While I joke a little, I am serious about ultra light fishing. You've never fished ultralight. Read on and I will prove it as ultralight fishing can have powerful results.

If you are reading this overseas in the U.K. or France, you may have most other readers beaten. You probably have hooked a tiny eyelash-sized bait to the tiniest size 20 or size 28 hook and used line of.5 lb. breaking-strength. You need not read further, you were very close to fishing via microscope as in the second paragraph. For my other fishing readers, these select few championship caliper anglers have fished  with a young blood worm (1st year) gnat larvae called a joker. This bait is the tiniest bait used on earth.

Club anglers in the U.K. have fished with a slightly larger, older gnat larvae - the blood worm itself on a size 20, 22 hook and you are also excused having used lines under 1 lb. breaking strength. If you have taken the time to place a couple of these chubby eyelash-sized baits on your pant leg and worked one very carefully onto a hook - you are good! These baits are smaller than the normal finger can manage and it takes serious skill to put a bloodworm  on without popping it's skin with any speed.

The rest of the world's gear blows U.S. tackle  away for precision, accuracy and for delicate, ultralight presentations. In waters where fishing is very tough, some of this equipment is exactly what is needed for angling success. If I still have your attention, you will be rewarded. If you are a forward-thinking person, you might think there is no application for such fishing in North America- but you would be very wrong. I have an example of an application you may find fascinating. At the very least, you will no longer think that you have fished "ultralight". Properly fished, true ultralight angling can result in trophy fish using less than 1 lb. line.

On one trip up to Canada, fishing was o.k., to slow. The lake we had been to before housed walleyes in the 29 - 33 inch trophy range. In previous trips, we had seen the giants and I was lucky enough to land 6 fish between 24 and 27 inches in 5 days on the lake. It was the trophy class fish which were slow in that we only saw one 24" fish between 2 anglers all week. We had tried everything - almost.

I knew of a stream that fed into our two lakes. In past years in this stream, one Summer day (late Spring for this Northern location), there had been an explosion of river shiners. Billions of them had been in the mouth of the stream doing what they do. At the mouth of the stream, there were always several hungry pike and other fish there attacking the back end of the mass. The water would explode with shiners  during the fish attacks in the shallow stream.

There was a time when I had filled our minnow buckets  with a quick dip net in two shots. The large fish attacked these natural minnows much better than the river darter minnows we had fished. We knew success came in the form of those much brighter, metallic shiners. Fish thrashed them quickly when lowered on a jig or bare hook.

This year, the fishing was slow and to make things worse, the shiners had come and gone due to a warmer Spring. Nearly no shiners were in the stream, but I could see an occasional shiner or two. Not billions but maybe 15 of them. When the shiners weren't in, it was truly disappointing as this was a deadly bait. The year prior, I promised I would pack some gear to fix this situation.

When packing for this trip, I had prepared by bringing special hooks  I used when I fished in Portugal in the World Championships fishing the bloodworm. Instead of getting in the cold water and finding bloodworm, I kept an X-acto blade in my box which I used to slice of a micro strip of night crawler. My hook was a size 22 which I attached to a thin carbon pole with some.010 mm fishing line. The line will hover around 1 lb. strength, very thin like a human hair.

To this, I attached a very delicate float - also used in Competition overseas. I put two split shot  on my line which were the size of two flecks of pepper stuck together. The body of the float is smaller than the nail on your little finger.

The process is dicey, to say the least. Clamping shot on line this thin damages it, so as I was taught, I pinched it on the tail end of the line, moistened it and pushed it up the line carefully. I repeated for the other shot and then trim off the damaged line. To finish the rig, I connect a looped, snelled hook.

Have you figured out my target species? 3.5-inch shiner minnows on hook &amp; line- ultralight. Since it was our last evening on the water, I wanted to make sure we had the good bait. In other words, desperation. It would be worth my time in the late afternoon to catch some shiners. These are magical.

I would adjust the system many times in the next:30 minutes. I had little success but was attracting the attention of these river shiners. If I could only get the slice of crawler thin enough in the right shape, I thought I could hook one. I sliced, adjusted, retried and adjusted. I was getting a couple of strikes but could not get the hook in their mouth. Finally, I learned how to go with the grain in the crawler and was able to slice of this hair-sized piece (after many failures). This went on the very end of the hook, and was hooked without the aid of a magnifying glass or microscope, up close and personal.

Then it happened, I set the hook with a dainty flick and landed my prize using a landing net ( I worked so hard to catch it, I wanted to make sure it didn't come off and drop in the water ). My net has a very fine fish-safe mesh which would later catch a couple that did drop off the hook. It took a few casts and hits to hook another. Healthy shiners are one of the fastest fish in the world. In a lightning flash they will hit a bait and spit it out. I would set the hook into air many times in between landing one. Eventually I left the stream with 13 shiners unhooked and placed into my minnow bucket. Tiny fish can be trophies too.

I knew these shiners were gold dust. When I got back to camp, my brother and I hit the boat and launched to our favorite walleye spot for that week. When we broke into the bay and bobbed to a halt, the rods were lifted and jigs tipped with of our limited supply of prized bait.

Success came quickly as the first couple of minnows were slammed and decent fish landed. A couple of fish later, the sun was looking low on the horizon. I put on one of the last shiners as each jig lowered was being hit very quickly - many times faster than the darter minnows from our bait supplier.

The fish really went ga ga over this species of silvery minnow. This time, I lowered my minnow, 3 minnows left in the trolling bucket. The jig reached depth and I clicked the bail shut on my spinning reel. A quick, hard, jolt ran up my fingers from the watched rod tip. A tight line had me aim down at this fish, angling the end of the rod towards it's toothy bite. I readied my strike and thumped a chunk of moving fish - a decent one.

From the bend in the rod, and the low, heaving strain on my line, I knew I was on a decent walleye. A few runs beneath the boat and I got a glance, this was big and I let my brother know the fish I had on looked like a submarine. It was easily the largest of the trip and one of my largest walleyes ever. A wide, beastie female walleye easily the big fish of the trip, crushing our 24" fish  from early in the slow week.

My brother announced he had hooked something on a double-up at the bow. This was one of the very few double catches on the week. My fish had a few runs left as I readied the net to land the big fish. I then overheard - "it's huge - give me the net". My brother had the nerve to request the net when I had a trophy on so I laughed the him off. "Patrick, I have hooked into a U-boat," I told him. He nervously said "mine's huge". With my fish near the surface and visible as it made a pass, I spotted my brother's fish and said "no, you didn't". I couldn't believe the size of his fish as it passed a few feet away from mine.

The fish at the end of my brother's line was at least 20% wider and was much longer than my fish and it was a walleye, the biggest I have ever seen. We landed both fish and were looking at over 55" of walleye  hooked on a double-header. My brother's fish was photographed, measured and released at 29.75" long. Pat's fish  bumped off my fish-of-the week (a title I held for under a minute) with his fish of a lifetime.

You could say we fished ultralight for these massive walleyes. We were using 4 lb. line and tiny jigs. You would be more accurate to say I fished ultralight for these fish by bumping a few river shiners with a size 22 hook on 1 lb. line - the only way to fish for trophy fish. Fish for trophy fish with fish caught on ultralight gear. The next time you hear the term ultralight, I hope you recall this and quickly correct that person.