7 More Fishing Hacks You Should Know

Following the popularity of 7 Fishing Hacks Everyone Should Know, here are seven more tips gathered from friends and from personal experience to solve some of the little problems that pop up while fishing.

1. Fillet a perch in 10 seconds: You need a REALLY sharp knife, quick and steady hands, and a lot of practice to get this trick down pat, but it's a fun one to try and leaves little mess behind. You can get through a mess of perch really quick once you've mastered this skill and you get very professional looking fillets as a result.

2. Freeze Roe: Steelhead and salmon anglers know that sometimes, there is nothing more effective for enticing a chrome bite than a tied bag of roe. But catching a ripe hen doesn't always happen just when you need it to, or perhaps a buddy shares some roe or skein with you and you don't need it all at once. To preserve the integrity of the eggs and maintain their scent, it is best to use your freezer for long time storage of trout eggs. The one crucial thing to remember is that air is the enemy of roe and that many a fine batch of bait has been lost to freezer burn. Ice crystals will form and cause the eggs to either break or turn opaque and rubbery if the roe is not stored properly.  To keep your roe in good shape, start by placing it in a Ziploc style freezer bag and gently removing all of the air from inside the bag. The bag should be flat, with no empty spaces.  Then, carefully wrap your bagged eggs in a layer of aluminium foil, again removing any pockets of air. Fold ends of foil over, creating a type of packet and label date and species with marker.

3. Emergency Perch Bait: We've all been there, when the bite is fast and furious and we are catching one after another and suddenly we look up and see that our bait bucket is empty. No one wants to leave a school of willing biters to go get more bait, so what is an angler to do? There is an old trick that some fishermen will use in a pinch, or even to stir up a sluggish appetite in fish unwilling to bite. It's not pretty, but some anglers swear by it. If you've already caught some perch, you have a supply of emergency bait on hand. Perch, like many fish, are cannibals. They have a particular taste for the eyeballs of their own kind. If you are in a bind for bait, you can remove the eyes of perch and use them to catch more. It's gross, but it works. The simplest way to remove the eye is with a panfish jig. Using the curved hook shaft like a scoop, push into the eye socket and pop the eye out. Slide it on a hook or onto the jig and continue fishing. Chances are, you will continue catching. Some bait companies have even come out with artificial fish eye bait to capitalize on the success of this technique.

4. Stop Lures From Fouling Up: It can be aggravating to finish the retrieve of your lure, one you have carefully cast and positioned, reeled in at just the right speed and at just the right depth only to find that your treble wrapped around your line, making your lure useless. This is often caused by a sloppy landing, causing the lure to tumble into the water and catch on the line. To prevent this, use your finger or thumb to put pressure on the line just before the lure hits the water and you'll have a smoother landing with less foul ups.

5. Close Your Bail: Most, if not all, spinning reels have a bail wire that will automatically close when you turn the handle. However, this is very hard on the mechanics of the reel and most experienced anglers will recommend that you manually flip the bail after casting. This will preserve the life of and save wear and tear on your reel.

6. Get The Mud Out: Lots of people like a feed of catfish in the spring and catfish and bullhead are willing biters and good fighters for most of the year. However, once the water warms up in the late spring and early summer, many find that certain kinds of fish will take on a strong muddy flavour. This taste can easily be removed by soaking cleaned fillets in the fridge overnight in a glass dish of milk. You can also use cold water with a teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in it. Then after soaking, cook as normal.

7. Keep Your Extra Minnows: You are all done fishing and you still have a dozen or so minnows left...what do you do? First of all, DO NOT throw them in the lake unless that is where you caught them. That is a sure fire way to spread invasive species and diseases, and in many places it is illegal to do so.  Instead, bring them home and make "salties." Salties are preserved minnows, a bait you can easily make at home and one that will keep indefinitely, under the right conditions.  There are many different recipes and techniques for making them, but the one common factor that many people overlook is that you must not use table salt! Pickling salt, the kind without added iodine, is what you need for firm and life-like salties. Otherwise, you will get mushy, stinky, mucky minnows that are only good for chum.  A properly cured saltie makes a great ice fishing bait, is very portable, and can save the day when you run out of live bait.

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