Finding And Catching One Of Ice Fishing's Most Overlooked Targets

Upon spotting a striper on the camera, Cook attempts to entice and catch it by working two holes of the equilateral triangle that are about five feet a part with two 6-foot medium-power spinning rods matched with medium-size spinning reels spooled with 6-pound-test line. Other anglers, however, use short medium-power baitcasting outfits spooled with 12-pound line. These casting rods normally have a fast tip and a powerful butt section.

Cook's spinning outfit sports a 1/2-ounce Kastmaster spoon in chrome, chrome and chartreuse, or chrome and blue. Another popular spoon is a Little Cleo. A 1/2-ounce spoon is most popular, but some ice anglers at Cheney opt for 1/4- and 3/8-ounce spoons.

Cook removes the spoon's treble hook and replaces it with a #1 Tru-Turn Bleeding Bait shank hook. Since Cook releases all the fish he catches, he also pinches the barb on the single hook.

Cook works the spoon by dropping it within 2 inches of the bottom. Then he quickly lifts it a foot off the bottom and allows it fall to the starting position. Then he holds it motionless for a spell. As he executes this lift-drop-hold presentation, he watches the reaction of the striper. If the striper approaches the spoon but won't engulf it, Cook subtly twitches the spoon as it is suspended 2 inches off the bottom.

Cook says that Kansas ice anglers don't tip their spoons with fish eyes or cutbait, but he thought it might be a good ploy, saying that the amino acids that are secreted from the fish flesh might coax a reluctant striper to attack the spoon.

From Cook's experience, the shallow-water fishing around Ruebke and Fisherman's coves normally falls off around midmorning, and it remains lackluster until late afternoon.

During midday, Cook moves down lake to probe areas as deep as 18 to 20 feet. He likes to fish on the south point of Graber Inlet, where the point falls into the river channel. He has also found some fruitful ice fishing around the north point of Wenzel Inlet, where a submerged secondary feeder creek joins the main river channel.

Across they years, Cook has observed that for some unfathomable reason, windy days are more fruitful for catching stripers under the ice than calm days.

During those winters when Cheney is iceless or its stripers become difficult to find and catch, anglers on the southern plains can travel several hours to the northwest of Cheney and test the waters of Wilson Lake, which lies seven miles north of I-70 and about 47 miles west of Salina, Kansas.

In comparison to Cheney's 9,537 acres of water, Wilson's 9,100 acres is significantly clearer and deeper. Moreover, its striper population is larger, and many of the specimens are bigger than those that roam Cheney. Since Wilson lies above the 39th parallel and Cheney lies below the 38th parallel, Wilson's winter weather is traditionally colder, its ice is thicker, and its ice-fishing season often lasts longer than Cheney's.

During last winter's ice-fishing season, Jack Hoskinson, a striper guide at Wilson, reported that hundreds of stripers were caught on January 25 and 26. Most of them ranged in weight from 4 to 15 pounds, and one weighed 25 pounds.

Before that 2-day bonanza, Hoskinson reported that ice anglers caught a 15- and 17-pounder in the Gravel Hill area of the lake on January 19. Besides those two brutes, anglers tangled with scores of 6- to 8-pounders, as well as a goodly number of white bass and white perch.

On January 21, Hoskinson warned anglers that a spell of warm weather had made the ice too precarious from him to traipse across. But he predicted that an approaching cold front would thicken the ice in the Gravel Hill area to 4 inches, and that prediction was on the mark.

Last winter, a 1/4-ounce white-and-chartreuse bucktail jig lured the most fish on Wilson, but in winter's past, a jigging spoon has been as effective as the bucktail jig.