2/13&14/2005

This time I'm going from New to Old

2/14/05 I really blew it this day. I spent to much time putting together my brother Steve's B-Day blog. It was beautiful all morning and for much of the afternoon, but by 4PM when I finally got out the clouds had moved in and it got super windy. I wasn't fishing when the front passed through and the weather was perfect for scouting Bass with the sun helping Aqua View visibility.

I did go out and check around an area that I think could hold Bass and what I saw in the limited time I had to search was at least encouraging. The right kind of weeds on this spot. While I did not see any Bass or Sunfish I did have two different Pike take a look at the camera. Last year it was not uncommen to get Pike with the Bass. I had one of the Pike on but only for a second or two. It was pretty cool as I got a great look at the second Pike I saw. It looked at one point like he was gonna charge the camera and then he was suspending to profile right in front of the camera with his mouth slightly open so I could see his toothy grin. Kind of the Pike version of "Leon."

This reminds me of a story I didn't tell from 3 or 4 nights ago. A couple of small Crappie were about 6ft off the bottom looking at my minnow when all of a sudden a "solid red" came flying off the bottom and disappeared with one of "little reds" that had been looking at the minnow. On the Vex that translates in watching a Crappie get "Whacked" by a Northern Pike. It was pretty cool. Wish I could have seen that with the camera.

Anyway after missing the Pike it was starting to get dark and I wanted to see if the front had the Crappies going or not. It was seriously windy on "The Hole." I was in the West holes again tonight cause I didn't have to auger. I got one 10" keeper and a couple that were just short of 9", most were 5" or under and it was kind of slow, the fish were not aggressive and wanted the little minnows tonight. I did find a propane bottle in the garage and so I had light tonight.

2/13/05
Fishing in the Sleet and Rain how interesting. When I got out to the hole there were some friends of Don W. who had just set up and so I went over and talked with them for a couple of minutes. They ended up catching about 10-15 that they kept but they were keeping 7"- 8" fish and they had one near 11" which is as big as any I've gotten this year.

Anyway I set up in the West Holes and was fishing by 5:15 cause I didn't have the lantern thanks to running out of Propane last night. The fish came in bunches and I three separate doubles. I got a probably 7 fish just short of 9" and 4 Crappies between 9" and 10.25." I lost a couple of good one's as well. Got a couple of mini's but not many small 4"-7" Fish. When they came in they were very aggressive and the bigger the minnow the better. I even put down a rogue 2.5" shiner that was in with the Crappie minnows and a 8" fish took that. Things really slowed down about 7PM and by 8PM I was off the ice.