Long time fishing guide Joe Pacholec, his son Joey and brother Carl were on their Wednesday weekly scouting and fun fishing outing to Lake Wallenpaupack.
They were targeting big striped bass, which Joe says are abundant on the deep and clear 100-year-old reservoir in northeast Pennsylvania.
“I guide anglers up to 200 stripers every year, with fish to 30 pounds,” the 58-year-old guide from Moosic, Pennsylvania tells Wired2fish. “We catch 20 or so of them through the ice every winter. They sure are strong and fun to catch.”
Every week Joe and friends do a lake scouting trip they call “Wicked Wednesday.” It’s a family and buddy fishing day that keeps Joe in touch with Wallenpaupack’s fish. It helps when he has a guided client trip booked on the lake through his “Legends Outdoors” business.
So, at daybreak on February 4 the trio of Pacholec anglers set up a cluster of 15 tip-up ice fishing rigs (five per man by state law) around a 30-foot-deep area with flooded trees. They were specifically targeting striped bass, using large live shad.
“We started early and cooked breakfast over the ice inside shelters with grills and heaters,” Joe said. “We hooked the first striper about 10 a.m., and there’s no doubt when a striper hits – it just smokes 30-pound braided line off a tip-up reel. You gotta stay on your toes and get to a tip-up fast when one hits, because they blister line off the spool.”
They’d race across the ice to a tip-up when a striper took a bait. Then it was handline, haul-in fishing. Ice reels have minimal line capacity, and Joe says a striper can zip off 50 feet of heavy braided line in just minutes.
They brought their first 17-pound striper up to the 10-inch diameter ice hole that mid-morning after about a 10-minute fight. Joey reached down through the hole, grabbed the fish and hauled it up. They took a few photos with the line-sided bass before releasing it.
“We lost one more fish,” Joe said. “But later on we hooked, fought and caught a second striper about the same size as the first one we had. Released it, too.”
The anglers headed back in that afternoon, happy about their ice striper catching success.
“Wallenpaupack is a great lake that the state stocks with stripers and trout every year,” Joe says enthusiastically. “I’ve had open-water striper trips where we caught and released over 30 fish.”
When asked if he relies on sonar or special lures for his successful fishing he chuckles.
“Nah, I know the lake well after fishing it for decades,” he states. “I’ve always said the best lure an angler can have is right between his ears.”
