Cool Cat Saturday!

March 5th 2005


FishingMinnesota.com had their annual "Cool Cats" ice catfishing get together on the Horseshoe Chain. I've wanted to do this an finally did.

The Plan: Get up early and put in tape at Jenny's to record Bass Saturday and then head to Sullivan to try for Tullibee and then leave for the Cool Cats by 8AM.

The Execution of Plan: Too tired! Slept in till 9AM; ohh well that's what I get for overextending myself.

Was on the road by 10 and at the event just before noon. They had a huge turnout but the bite was almost non existant unless you were there early. Cyberfish and The Pistol hadn't caught anything. So we fished, schmoozed, ate food, I won a door prize of a "card" of Scenic Tackle Glow Devil Spoons, not to be confused with Custom Jigs Glow Demons and took Pattie Lou for walks and played fetch. I would say there was close to 100 people at the event.

Finally as the sun was going down we started to get some action from College Outdoors Guys favorite: Rock Bass! To bad Scott, you should have made the drive it was a regular Pig fest. Eventually Cyb and Pistol decided to leave, probably around 7:30 or so. On their way out they stopped at the only other house left, and he was starting to get Cats. I went over and talked with The Chemist .

Anyway, sure enough he had gotten two for his kids and was packing up. He said I was to deep and should come on over and so I did. I got set up and immediately had fish come in, but then my lantern died and so I went and asked if The Chemist had a bottle of propane I could buy. He was had two partials that he gave me for free along with a couple of spoons that he thought would work. The Chemist and I talked for quite a while, nice guy.

Anyway, I finally did get the lantern back on and started fishing. The fish were not as eager to show up, Ooops talked to much. First fish was another Pug Bass, What!. I then lost what had to be a Cat, major pull! Then I finally landed the 1st Dude, a 22"er (pic above). He came in about 10feet of bottom in 24' of water and just smacked it, biggest one of the night.

Here's others before camera went kaput!





Got all the Cats on the Pink Glow Devil (as you can see in pics) that I had won as a door prize earlier in the Day. I got something like 4 more and probably 5 or so more Rockies. I headed off the lake at about 1Am. It was a blast, those cats sure do put a bend in ice fishing pole.

Thank God for GPS or I might have struggled getting off the ice. I did not mark the access but just being able to know which way was which was huge. It was so warm that the vehicle trail had all but disappeared in the warm weather of the day and early evening.

Big Thanks to The Chemist and the people of FM.com.

March 04, 2005

Morning:

Headed over to Sullivan and "The Tullibee Hole" at about a 6:15Am. I was surprized to see about 5 Trucks and traps on the spot. I figured it was a good sign for the Whitefish. I parked a little South of the Pack and drilled. I was marking suspenders about 10ft off bottom almost immediately but they wouldn't bite. Eventually I got a 8" Crappie. I then nabbed a solid 10" and missed a couple more. The fish seemed real finicky and I didn't think they were tullibee. I put down a Glow Demon and maggies; It didn't take long and I had brought up about 6 Bull Bruggers (bluegills) between 7.5 and 9"'s yes 9 inches. I don't know what they were doing suspending out in 23 feet of water but they were. I think I caught about 11 total and only 3 were below 7inches. WoW! I did nab an occasional 8" Crappie and whacked about a 2.5lb eye on a Fat Boy and maggies. I wanted to take a pic but the camera batteries were dead (It's always something with that thing).

As the sun got higher things went perchy and then petered out and I think maybe a tullibee or two came through, but I didn't get any. The one group I talked to didn't get any either. I did some hole hoping and it was mostly perch with a couple of so-so gills. Got one more Bull out of my original holes and then I headed in.

Afternoon:
Got out later than I wanted too, due to listening to BASS results online. Got out about 5PM and the Crappies were not around at first. Same two guys from yesterday were out at "The Hole." I decided to drill some new holes and discovered I was farther West than I had realized.

When I got back from drilling some Crappies had moved in and I nabbed 6 ASAP no keepers. Then they were gone so I went to my 2nd set. There I caught them sporatically with 3 that I kept 2x8.75" and a 9.25", my 3rd set gave up nothing and they basically did not hit after dark yet again. That was that!

Maybe I'll get a pick in here of all the dudes before I clean em.

On the March

March 3rd 2005

I am finally getting over my sinus and ear infection and the weather is OK, so I headed out for some evening fishing at "The Hole". Was on the road and out of Bear Trax by 5:15 figuring I would hit the evening bite. Much to my surprize there were two trucks and traps on "The Hole." They were basically sitting right where I would have wanted to go. I didn't want to crowd them and so I went a bit SW and was only in about 21 ft of water.

I was surprized to see solid marks even before I dropped my first minnow. I had a keeper, a couple of good misses and a about 4 smalls immediately. One of the guys was leaving and so I went over and talked to him. He said the fish were thick and aggressive and he even got a good sunfish. He was headed home with a limit of 8"to9" fish. The other guy, I think also had a limit and left. The sun was heading down and I went out and made ramps in their holes. I then got back and nailed a couple of small crappie. I had forgotten my LED headlamp and so I drove back and got it. There was zero bite when I got back in any of the holes. Looks like a day bite????