Filming Fishing Show with Infisherman TV!

About 10 days ago I got an email from Doug Stange host of Infisherman TV that he would like to film some ice fishing shows here in Illinois on January 23 and 24th.... He said he has been seeing some big bluegill pictures coming from Central Illinois.... He wanted to do a multi species show talking about pond management and a BIG bluegills show using small minnow baits....When he sent the email, my lake looked like this:


I responded back that I would love the opportunity, but didnt think I would have any place to fish safely that soon....he responded back that cold weather was coming my way....

We got the arctic blast, locked up the lakes, and then got two perfect ice fishing days for filming the shows!!! Now the ice wasnt and isnt exactly safe for yall to just go out and start walking around...we werent able to fish a couple lakes I would of loved to fish. In fact on Wednesday we had to go up to the Victoria area to get safe ice and fish on lakes that I help manage, but never have ice fished before.....

So here I am with the nations best fishing show coming to film with me as their guide and I was just a tad nervous to say the least.......I wasnt able to fish my bread and butter lakes and had no chance to scout or prefish and had never even ice fished these lakes before....Usually I am prepared and double prepared and triple prepared for everything, but there I was just had to pretty much wing it.....

So Wednesday morning I get up well before the crack of dawn, get everything together, pick up sandwiches at Subway at 6 am and make it to our meeting spot at Ladd's Food Mart in Williamsfield about 30 minutes early.....I had already forgotten the bait the night before and just hoped Brett who was coming to help me had enough bait for the day....I'm usually way early to everything and just was gonna take that time to relax sitting in that parking, but not 2 minutes after I pull in and here comes the crew from Brainerd, Minnesota 30 minutes early....game time....

We say our hello's, go over the game plan, the script, the agenda, the rundown, and get all mic'd up and ready to catch some fish for the national TV audience....Here is our first set up....


So filming a fishing show is definitely not nearly as easy as one would think.....You got to get big fish to bite using baits and gear you wouldnt normally use...the reason being you have to showcase the TV shows sponsor's gear....Actually thats not what makes the TV show hard to film, what makes it hard is the having to get abnormally large fish hooked up while on Camera and then get all your lines correct the first time while reeling in the fish and talking about your presentation and the fish....

Doug is a natural for sure, I on the other hand am a work in progress...We spent literally 8 hours filming the show about how ice fishing ponds on the southern edge of the ice belt is some of the best ice fishing opportunities for monster panfish! We were able to tie in managing ponds for certain fish species and Doug threw in tons of good references and positive comments for us Herman Brothers!!! He did his research, I was impressed!

We bounced around to 4 different lakes in the Victoria area and were able to get good fish for the show from 3 of the 4 lakes! I wasnt able to take many pics, cause the camera was literally in my face the entire day.





So at sunset we packed er up and headed back to my place to clean some fish and eat some dinner...Naturally this is where you guys expect Chef Todd to come into the picture with some out of this world food pictures, but he was sick most of last week and couldnt take anymore time off work....We are talking about a man who has seen every fishing show ever made since before I was born and he cant get off work to come and fish and cook for his favorite TV show while they are in town.......

So the cooking duties were left to my mom....She makes a killer crappie chowder so she had that ready for us.....all I had to do was to clean the crappies in the below picture, cook them in a pan with some butter and throw them into the mixture.... Man was that ever good after a day out in the cold......
 

We sat around the fire and talked for a few hours, put together the game plan for the show the next day and went to bed.......After the gang went to bed, I actually went out onto my lake and checked the ice for safety...we didnt plan on fishing my lake because there have been so many stinkin geese on it keeping it open even in single digit temps......Anyhow I wanted to fish my lake so bad I could taste it!!!

My lake is 33 acres and no offense to anyone with a lake, but my lake is my favorite lake to ice fish hands down...Its not an easy lake to ice fish, but it is full of BIG fish.....I know every hump, bump, sunken tree, rock pile, ridge, nook, cranny, jot and tittle in that body of water.....I know the lake and I know the fish....

The back fourth of my lake was still open water, and the back half of my lake was not safe for walking on, but there was a clearly defined line of existing ice that never melted off with the warm rain of 2 weeks ago that was every bit of 5 inches thick!!! The problem was that a good majority of my main ice fishing spots were on the not safe part of the ice, but I still had a handful of brush piles in 10-12' of water that were very fishable.....

So I went to bed very encouraged and even more excited for the day ahead....We started the next day at a lake just outside of Canton and fairly quickly caught this really nice crappie and made some good conversation on film with it for an opening of a show!


We caught a handful more crappie, bass, and bluegill at that lake and then decided it was time to head over and give my lake a try!!

So you see the very white ice we were standing on, that was 5-6 inches thick. The other side of that line of ice was only 2.5 inches thick. You can see we were very limited to the amount of the lake we could use for fishing, but thank goodness we found one of my big brushpiles right on the edge of the safe ice!! We were able to film the whole show from those two ice fishing holes!!!











Oh Yeah, how could I forget about this guy in the middle...His name is Dr. Ed...He travels and fishes with Doug from time to time and he is one heck of a nice guy! He's a big dude too, I dont look right into the eyes of many people.... The Dr. was a fish catching machine!


Dr. Ed's first 4 fish of the day were 4 different species from the same spot on the same bait.....A crappie, a largemouth, a bluegill, and then a smallmouth!!

I actually didnt get any pictures of the fish that we used for the show from my lake, because we had to release them on film, so you are gonna have to watch InFisherman TV late this fall and see what we caught on footage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So anyhow, all in all it really is fun to make fishing shows....I like the challenge, but maybe I just feel that way cause we just pulled a rabbit out of our hat on this one???? I felt very unprepared and was scrambling, which doesnt happen very often. Now dont get me wrong, I have no problems with just winging stuff, but usually its easier to wing stuff when you still have some degree of control....In order to pull this off, everything had to fall into place exactly starting back 10 days ago, and this go around everything fell into place!

Just a couple more days and I should have most all my lakes and spots ready to FISH! If your wanting to get out, NOW is the time to make plans to make it happen. Also dont wait for me to contact you. Track me down and lets catch some fish, I fear this ice is gonna be here and gone and I wont have a chance to make it into the office to track you down, I will be out fishing till the ice is gone!