Part one of a two-part MidWest Outdoors exclusive

Have you ever snagged a pike, walleye or bass on the side, in the tail or on the head? I have, and always blamed the fish’s inability to hone in on its target. Not so!

You might or might not realize that “Bobber” Anne and I have been deeply involved in underwater videography, especially in rivers. And while we spend a great deal of time fishing rivers, we also devote many days to fishing and filming on lakes and reservoirs, where Anne has applied her considerable underwater filming expertise. During these jaunts on big waters, my partner has become as good an underwater shooter as I’ve ever encountered in North America.

This underwater filming began by using the pole camera. Finding it too confining, we moved on to a Marcum unit that allowed us to dig deeper into the waters we explored. But that gear switch brought a new challenge: controlling the lens at the end of a tether line.

By creating a number of lens holders, which hold the lens in a proper filming position, we solved that problem. We were able to lower our cameras down to 100 feet in lakes like Michigan, Superior and Huron.

Remember my series of how-to stories in MidWest Outdoors that exposed to the fishing public for the first time those hidden slack-water zones at the bottom of rivers? During the five years of research it took to bring that series together, we fished a number of lakes as well, always exploring with the use of our underwater cameras.

Did you know that Lake Michigan hosts bottom zones created by the currents? Any knowledgeable charter captain who fishes Lake Michigan will tell you the lake has current flow within it. Sustained north winds cause a current flow toward Chicago and Gary, Ind., which loops deep to travel along bottom, northward up the lake. This bottom flow causes zones along the lake bottom. The same is known to exist when sustained west winds drive surface water from Wisconsin onto the Michigan shoreline, which then loops deep to bring the cold, deep waters up on the Wisconsin shores. Such currents and the bottom zones they create have a direct effect on perch and salmon fishing, as well as lake trout.

Perch anglers near Waukegan have found the perch in 40 to 60 feet of water after several days of westerly winds. The reason: shoreline-hugging perch drop deep into the slack-water zones to stage. Here they find all the food necessary to sustain them.

But alas, this isn’t a column about Zones; it’s an exposure of the bump and stun action that predator fish use to gather food.

Let’s go back to the first time I was exposed to the bump and stun move by predator fish. My father and I were trolling ballyhoo just off Alligator Lighthouse, off Isla Morada in the Florida Keys. We were in search of king mackerel and wahoo, thus our trolling speed had been bumped up to nearly 10 miles an hour.

“Gander” (Dad’s nick-name for me), “A king just missed your bait and blew it about five feet above the surface.”

As the ballyhoo hit the surface after its flight, the same fish was there to gather it up. To both of us, this was a strange happening. Ten minutes later, the same thing occurred to Dad’s trolled ballyhoo. Only this time, it was a wahoo that father battled for nearly 40 minutes before boating.

“Gander, that was a deliberate swipe, said Dad. “The wahoo used its tail to force the bait into the air. I watched the whole thing. That fish was deliberate in its first move, and seemed to be killing its prey. Then it was waiting with an open mouth when it came back to the surface.”

Not all the fish caught that day used this approach to gathering food, but enough to get both of us thinking. I was in my 20s at the time. I never forgot the lesson, and later watched that trick performed numerous times by many saltwater species such as sailfish, marlin, and tuna.

Once, in Costa Rica, Anne and I watched the underwater monitor as it recorded while 9 sails and 2 marlins sliced into a school of 12-inch mackerel. The predators stunned small fish, one after another, with their bills. They didn’t do it for themselves: they worked as a team, bumping and stunning smaller baitfish for eating by the whole group. In the end, they all gathered in enough 12-inch mackerels to fill their stomachs.

Why do I bring the antics of saltwater fish into a column written for Midwestern anglers? Because over the years, I have watched freshwater predators engage in similar acts.

Pike are notorious for coming in on a baitfish, working up alongside and under it, deliberately, it would appear, missing with their open mouth––then slamming the baitfish hard as their head and shoulders jerk upward. This sudden act destroys the small fish’s swimming pattern and disorients it. Instantly, the toothy pike is on the small fish, striking in its center or close to the head. Once engaged, the pike now works the smaller fish toward its mouth, eventually swallowing the prey head first.

It’s an act that “Bobber” Anne has recorded, several times, with her underwater filming gear. These methods by pike are done on other pike, walleyes, and suckers. I’ve never seen a pike engage a bass this way, so I can’t testify that it happens.

On a trip to giant Lake Athabasca, we filmed a 50-pound lake trout ramming, time and again, a 10-pound laker that Anne had hooked. The monstrous fish rammed Anne’s fish six or seven times with its blunt and bony head, each time failing to open its mouth. It appeared that the 50-pounder was only out to stun her prey. In the end, she did engage the small one with her mouth in an attempt at swallowing it. But not before charging our camera lens and slamming it hard three times! Our lens obviously had become an intruder that might take the big trout’s dinner away, and she’d have none of it. The surprising thing about this encounter was that when the monster fish attempted to discourage our lens’s intrusion, she did clamp her teeth down over it in an attempt to kill it.

Yup, we have it all on film.

Each time the monster left, the stunned 10-pounder would begin to settle into the water column. I did have the presence of mind to tell Anne not to land her fish. And each time the big trout turned to look at the small trout, she’d race back and slam it from underneath, as if to make sure it stayed in a lifeless state.

I suggested to Anne that she should reel the stunned trout up one more time, to see if we could capture one more encounter. Alas, the monster never followed; she must have tired of the game. But we did gather nearly 25 minutes of the most exciting video we’ve ever taken, the most impressive proof of the bump and stun actions performed by freshwater fish.

Another theory was confirmed that day. Lake trout are a predator fish that feed on their young. Something I’d known for years, after discovering you could use the head of a small laker dropped to the bottom to attract trophy lakers that gobble the head off bottom. Lake trout are scavengers that feed on parts of fish, even their own kind. The head of a small fish is possibly the best part to present in this quest. But that’s another story for another day.

Next month I’ll take you into the ways walleyes and other species preform the bump and stun.

Until next month, this is the Old Man, reminding you to relax, savor, and enjoy your days on the water. The great outdoors is yours to protect for future generations.

     Considered one of the world’s leading river anglers, Dan Gapen, Sr. will continue to recount his past and recent adventures and offer up his knowledge to MidWest Outdoors readers. For more information call The Gapen Company at 763-263-3558, email them at gapen@gapen.com or visit them at Facebook @TheGapenCompany.