Long Lake With Pete

8" VMC Fly/Jamei/Wax

4:00-6:00PM Long Lake P30'
20-18℉, Partly Cloudy, 2-6mph NW

Headed to Long Lake with Pete on Don's recommendation.  There were two port's along the western edge of the hole.  Pete took us just little ways south of the southernmost house.  We talked to that guy and he said he got one small pike.  He drilled about 10 holes in a circle 4-5" of ice.  He lost a good fish right away.  Pete caught the first crappie at about 4:45PM.  I had my line get tangled up on my spring bobber.  Had to break it off. Lost the No-Knot Snap on the ice.  The other guy left and the farther North guy came to see if we had a phone.  I forgot mine and Pete didn't have service.  I had a good mark move in while we were talking with the guy.  He left.  I got a couple 8-inchers on the VMC Fly/Jamei/Wax Worm.  Pete ended up keeping 5 and releasing 1.

2 Crip
6 Crip Pete

Bulldog Slick and Wet

8" Glow Demon/minnow

5:30-9:00PM Bulldog Lake
40-36℉, Cloudy some mist, 5mph E

I decided to hit Bulldog tonight.  There were two trucks parked at the access with a guy and his dog coming in.  He was fishing pike.  Don't remember if he said he got any or not.  As I started out the other two anglers who were fishing started heading in.  They were along the North East shoreline I think.  When we passed each other I was surprised that it was two women.  They said they didn't have any luck.  I got out to the hole and started walking around with the Vex.  I took longer than expected but I marked a fish, so I drilled a pair of holes.  When I got my lines down the fish were gone.  I went out and walked around with the Vex again.  There were a few frozen up holes in the area I was searching.  Eventually, I marked another fish so I got the Ion and drilled a couple more holes.  I lost the first couple of crappies at the hole.  They bit on the VMC Fly with Maki Jamei.  I got the one I took a picture of on the Glow Demon and minnow.  There were a few other fish that picked at the minnow but never pulled the bobber down.  I went out and walked around with the Vex again and marked a pair of fish, so I drilled holes.  This is where I spent the rest of the night.  The fish were amazingly skittish for first ice.  A lot of lookers. I ended up with 6 crappies on the VMC Fly with Wax Worm.  I lost about 5 fish that hit as well.

9 Crappies

Looking Not Finding Much On Rock, I Was A Cold Mess

Same size as last night's crappie

Broke the tripod for the second time

10:30AM-1:30PM Rock Lake
16-18℉, Cloudy, Sunny, Cloudy, 4-8mph East

So I took another trip out to Rock Lake to see what I could spy with the Aqua-Vu.  I had it on the tripod in the 5-gallon bucket.  It was stuck and like a fool, I forced it loose breaking the tripod again.  Nothing a little super glue won't fix, but it was a boneheaded move.  I redrilled holes from last night and worked my way North.  I spotted a pike in the first hole.  I swear it took me 5 minutes to get a line down. The pike was gone, but I got a couple of perch.  A couple of perch in the next hole.  The third hole down I hooked into a 20-inch pike on the Glow Demon Spoon.  The hook was in its lip and I fought it well.  I had it in the hole several times. Finally, I went to grab it missed and my line broke.  Was not a happy camper.  Spotted a few more perch.  Didn't see any bass, gills, bowfin, bullheads, or crappie.  Should have stayed in the 10 foot and under range. 

Same Lake Slower Bite

9.5" Glow Demon Spoon/Mayfly/maggots

5:15-7:15PM Bulldog
Condtions: 23℉, Cloudy, Wind ESE
Depth: 26Ft fish about 1/2 way down

A couple more little guys tonight

I was feeling kind of sluggish tonight.  The wind didn't help. I set up about 15 feet from where I was last night.  There were a few guys out fishing when I got there, but were all gone after 45 minutes. There was noticeably less fish going through tonight. I almost moved a couple of times, but fish pulled me back in.  The fish were sluggish as well.  A number of nippers.  I also had probably too much stuff on the VMC Fly/not enough hook.  It could be that it was those mini-crappies as well.

10 VMC Fly/Maki Jamei/maggots
6 Glow Demon/minnow
1 Glow Demon Spoon/Impulse Mayfly, maggots

17 Crappies

220 Crappies for the Winter

Forgot the Camera (Bulldog)

1:45-2:45PM Bulldog
Conditions: 42℉, Cloudy, Light Rain

I checked out Platte Lake.  A couple of cracks had me concerned, so I decided not to fish there.  I decided not to get minnows and almost didn't go out on Bulldog because the ice was only 3".  I wore my life jacket and trolled on the ice and stopped when I saw some activity in about 22 feet.  I got 3 perch in the first spot.  I got small sunfish and perch in about 30.  The wind came up and it started sprinkling, so I left.

4 Perch
1 Sunfish

First Ice Trip Of the Winter

4:00-5:45PM Bulldog
Conditions: 40-36℉, Mostly Sunny, West Wind turning calm, 30 feet of water

8.5" VMC Fly/Jamei/Wax (Glow)

So the Bugaboots arrived in the mail today.  Think I should have gone with a size 10, oh well.  Trying them out on the ice gave me the motivation to finally get my act together.  I went to Bulldog because I figured the ice would probably be safe there.  There was a guy out fishing when I arrived.  I elected not to go and get minnows by eeny, meany, miny, moe the decision in the Holy Family parking lot.  I checked with the spud bar on my way out.  A couple of times I was able to put it through with two shots, but most of the time I couldn't get through with 3 shots. Shortly after I started fishing the other guy left.  Somebody left a container of waxies out on the ice.  I missed the first fish that bit.  Then nothing.  I hole hopped a few times before finding something.  I landed a couple of Bulldog Lake Specials.   I found a few more fish back towards the North.  I forgot to put the heater in the car, so when I got cold I left.

Maybe I will go after some sunny's out there.

6 Crappie

I Went Ice Fishing Again

8.5" VMC Fly w/Jamei & spike

6:00-8:30PM Sullivan Lake (Sunfish Spot)
Conditions: 34-28℉, Mostly Sunny, Light N Wind, 26' of water

I went to Bear Trax and picked up some minnows and then headed to Rock Lake.  I was putting on my ice cleats when one of them broke, Doh.  I decided to drill some holes in the access area and look with the camera.  Ice was about 12" thick and honeycombed.  I didn't see any fish.  I wasn't going to walk out to my spot with only one ice cleat on.  I gave Bear Trax a call and they were open to 6PM, so I packed up and went and got a new pair of cleats.

I then headed to Sullivan.  I was the only person at the East access.  There were a couple of people fishing out toward the middle between the two accesses.  I went out to the spot I caught the sunfish last time I was out.  Fish were there, but I couldn't get them to bite, at least not bite so I could detect it.  I put the camera down and spotted some crappies, sunnies, and perch.  I watched crappies come up to the Fly look at for a few seconds then swim away a couple of times when I was down viewing.  I pulled the camera up because visibility just wasn't that good.  I had the bobber get pulled down a couple of times, but missed both fish.  I did get a couple of 8.5" crappies.  It was a nice sunset, but a little colder out than I wanted it to be.

     When I pulled away from the access the check engine light came on, Ruh Roh!.  Was this my last ice fishing trip of the year?

2 Crappies

No Tullibee This Morning Either

8.9" VMC Fly w/Mak Jamei and spike

6:30AM-12:00PM Sullivan Lake (Tullibee Area)
Conditions: 32-48℉, Windy SSE, Cloudy to Sunny, 26' fish were 10' of the bottom

Oops,

The rod bag fell of the Fish Trap when I first started walking out and I didn't realize it until after I was all the way out.  That wasted a good 15 minutes.  There was snow on the ice when I went out, by the time I left not so much.

About an hour before I left, a wet mess.

 There was pretty much almost nothing going on where I fished yesterday.  I caught maybe 2 sunny's and this one little crappie.

All fish were caught on the Fly/Jamei Combo

I decided to move farther to the South and I got into a school of active sunfish and picked up 9 nice sized ones.

8" VMC Fly

3.5" VMC Fly

I got into a school of little perch that just lit up the Vex.  I put the AquaVu Micro 5c camera down and they were all over the place.

1 Crappie
11 Sunfish
3 Perch

No Tullibee This Morning

10.75" VMC Fly w/Jamei and spike

6:00-10:00AM Sullivan Lake the Tullibee Hole
Conditions: 24-34℉, Mostly Sunny, Windy SE, 25'-26' of water most fish came 15' down

I was hoping to luck into some tullibee this morning.  I was up at 4:30AM and off to the lake by 5:30.  I was fishing by 6:00AM.  I caught a small crappie right away on the Demon/minnow combo.  I then missed a fish that took the bobber down.  About 20 minutes later I got a 9.5" crappie on the VMC Fly w/Jamei.  I got a nice crappie on the minnow, then one on the Fly.  I put a wax worm on the Demon for about 20 minutes. And jigged a rattle spoon with a wax worm dropper hoping to get a tullibee.  Didn't really seem like anything showed interest in that.  I got a 7" sunfish.  A little after sunrise I went to holes that were a little deeper.  I got a little more action there and some possible tullibee looks.  I put down the Aqua-Vu, but visibility wasn't any good so I brought it right back up.  I got a few more crappies and a good bluegill.

8.9" VMC Fly

Things slowed down by 9:30.  I switched holes a little shallower and didn't get anything there.  I packed up at 10AM

12 Crappies
3 Sunfish

Sullivan With Pete

10.75" VMC Fly w/Jamei (purple)

4:30-6:30PM Sullivan Lake
Conditions: 53℉, Partly Cloudy, East Wind, 25' of water

We finally got out on Sullivan.  The access wasn't in that bad of shape. I wasn't really sure where we were going to fish.  A lady was waiting outside her wheelhouse for her husband to show up with the truck to move it away.  We stopped and she told us they had gotten some sunfish and perch, so we stopped right there.  Basically in the area where I've caught sunfish and tullibee in the past.  I drilled some holes to the West and Pete went to holes that had already been drilled.  I caught a 6" gill first.  Then I got the crappie.  Which Pete wanted me to keep, so I threw it on the ice.  I caught another couple of gills and Pete caught a spottail shiner.  That gave him walleye on the brain.  I gave him my bobber rod, thinking that is what he would use.  His thinking was to get rid of the bobber and tie on a spoon.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that was what he was doing until it was to late.  I, of coarse, had my jigging rod sitting in the bag I took the bobber rod from.  I was pretty frustrated by that development.  I went back to fishing after locating my bobber rig in the truck.  I caught a couple of nicer sunfish.  Fortunately Pete was a ways away and didn't see me catch them, so I threw them back.

8" VMC Fly w/Jamei and spike

9" VMC Fly

Me looking to see if Pete's saw me with the bull

After that I had a few more bites that I missed and Pete had the shiner stolen.  We had a flock of swans fly over when it was getting fairly dark.  Our Vex's went blank so we packed up and left.  Good thing, because I was getting hungry and I had that fish to clean and Pete had my crappies from last week to cook.

They were delicious

1 Crappie
7 Sunnies
1 Spottail Shiner-Pete

Lots of Fish on Aqua-VU

Not the greatest picture and the only one I took of the Aqua-Vu.
 The sunny at bottom middle had a nasty gash on the top of it's back

3:45-7:15PM Rock Lake My Spot mostly the waypoint holes
Conditions: 51-40℉, Cloudy, Very light to no wind SW

Pete wanted me to meet him at Garrison to fish after Bucks for Ducks, but I wasn't having any of that.  Good choice for me, as it was a total cluster for people trying to get off, not to mention all the standing water.

I ended up getting out later than I wanted too.  There were several trucks on the ice and the ice at the access seemed solid, so I drove on.  Obviously no problems.  I didn't use the Ion.  I was pretty much immediately marking fish in the waypoint holes.  I put the camera down and it was a mixed school or crappies and sunnies; I was really on top of them.  I got a few crappies on the Demon with the minnow and on the Fly with Jamei.

9.75" Demon w/Minnow

 Mostly the fish just milled around.  I did get a few sunnies and 1 perch.  I had 1 pike come through.  It disappeared by the time I put a spoon down. The fish pretty much split by 5:30PM.  I did pick off a few more.  Once it got dark it got tough.

5" VMC Fly

6" VMC Fly

I saw and heard some swans as they flew over tonight.

24 Crappie
13 Sunfish
1 Pike
1 Perch

Smashin' Biggen's

19.75" VMC Fly w/Maki Jamei (purple)

4:00-7:30PM Rock Lake My Spot

Conditions: 56-40℉, Mostly Sunny, Light SW wind,  16' mostly the waypoint holes.

I drilled a total of 4 sets of holes with the one's at the waypoint being triples, instead of my usual double, so I could put the new Aqua-Vu Micro 5c down.  When I went to use the MoPod the batteries were dead, so I had to position the camera manually.  Today there was better water clarity than the first time I tried it;  On that day it was basically unusable visibility was so poor.  I had a few sunfish and perch come in at first then nothing.  I stopped looking at the camera for a minute as I straightened out some things in the Fish Trap.  Next time I looked at the camera there was a fish looking right at the camera.  It was far enough away I couldn't tell if it was a pike or a bass.  It then swam right up to the VMC Fly as I was jigging it.  It sucked it in and spit it before I could react.  I kept jigging it and it sucked it in again.  The battle was on.  I pulled out the ducer and got the camera pulled up as well.  It did get tangled in the minnow line, but I was able to land it without a problem.  She put up a great fight.

19.75" VMC Fly

I was like dang, this fish is a really good one, almost 20 inches.  Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of it in my measuring cradle.  I released her down a different set of holes.  I would say it went a bit shy of 4lbs.  

I went back got the lines untangled and put on a new minnow and got the camera back down the hole.  I put the Rippin' Rap down the hole for doing the camera centering.  I had it almost right on, just needed to make one little adjustment.  When I got that done, low and behold there was another good bass staring down the Rippin' Rap.  Sure enough it could't resist and took a bite. I had it hooked for about 5 seconds then it got off.  

I'm not sure if it was the same fish or not, but almost immediately after it got off a fish came through and took my minnow.  I  set the hook and the battle was on.  I thought to switch off my anti-reverse switch so I could back reel my baitcaster.  There was not going to be a repeat performance of me breaking a fish off like a couple of weeks ago.

17.75" Glow Demon w/minnow

This fish was much more chunky and I thought to get the picture in the measuring trough.

I went back to fishing.  The visibility started getting more difficult due to little things in the water, not because of lack of light.  I missed the first crappie that came through and I started catching some sunfish and perch.  Mostly I just played with sunnies because they weren't very big one's.  I did get this 7", which was my biggest for the night.

7" VMC Fly w/Jamei & spike

I finally landed my first crappie for the night. Didn't think to take a picture of it.  When it bit I thought it was a sunfish I was looking at on the camera.  Not long after that I gave up on the camera because the visibilty was so bad.

    I caught this one potato chip.  I started moving around to my other holes and picking up crappies on the Fly and the Demon.  I finally thought to take a picture of a crappie.

9.25" Demon w/minnow

I decided I was on my last minnow at 7PM.  I caught a couple crappies on the Fly before a crappie came and took the minnow; I landed that fish.  I got a couple more crappies on the Fly and then I packed up.  I think I got fish in each set of holes.  It was a bit sloppy on the ice, but not to bad.  All in all a good night on the lake.

13 Crappies

19 Sunfish

8 Perch

2 Bass

It Wasn't AWWWN But I Had Fun Anyway

16" VMC Fly Jig w/Maki Jamei (purple) & spike

I had a close call on the way to the lake this morning with some deer.  I was really lucky to the first one crossed so far in front of the others so I slowed way down quickly.  I had to come to a complete stop to avoid hitting the second one.  There were several other deer in the ditch looking at me.  Whew!

7:15AM-1:30PM Rock Lake mostly at my spot.
Conditions: 31-28℉, Mostly Sunny, Windy to Very Windy NW, waypoint holes to 11'

When I first got out of the truck

I fished in the morning because of the forecast for high winds in the afternoon and evening.  The plan was to fish with my old Aqua-Vu so I drilled out the waypoint holes first thing.  I sent the transducer down the hole and immediately was marking fish.  I sent down a minnow on the Glow Demon and was bit immediately.  I maybe got a little anxious with the hook set and lost the fish and minnow half way up.  I quickly put on another minnow and immediately got bit again.  I landed a 9.5" crappie and thought to myself.  It's AWWWWWWWWWWN.  By the time I got the next minnow down the crappies had moved on.  That was my only crappie for the morning.  I saw one other come through on the camera.

7" Tubby Jig w/Jamei and wax

 I started getting some sunfish and also had spottail shiners nibbling at me.  The sunfish started only pecking and staring at my bait and a few perch showed up as well.  I had a pike come in a couple of different times, but it didn't show any interest in hitting my baits.

I went and drilled holes on the four hole house spot and in 11' of water.  There was nothing but perch in the four hole spot, so I moved on to the shallow spot.  I was seeing perch and had a small pike come through once again showing no interest in hitting my baits.  The wind started cranking up and I was just about to give up when a bass appeared out of nowhere (it came in from behind the camera) and came in and hit the Fly.  I set the hook and she immediately started peeling line (2lb test Gamma).  I went to pull the transducer out of the hole and the Fish Trap started moving so I had to sit down immediately.  It was a real challenge getting the transducer out of the water.  I thought the bass was possibly hung on the Aqua-Vu cable because something didn't feel right, so I pulled that up as well.  The bass finally came up the hole.

16"

I stayed and fished for another hour hoping another bass might come through, but all I saw was perch.

I then decided to tow the Fish Trap just to the South of the access.  I fished there in 11' to 6' of water and didn't see any activity on the Vex.

I brought the Fish Trap back to the truck to pack up.  It was pretty warm out so I wrote in my notebook when I quit fishing  and went to put my jacket in the truck and pulled the Ipod out of my pocket so I could continue to listen to it while I broke things down.  I decided to reposition one of my pole clips, then got everything in the car.  I went to put the Ipod back in my jackets inner pocked and my cell phone wasn't there.  What?  Crap!

I went and looked at the holes I had been fishing, nothing.  I went back to the truck and my notebook wasn't in the pocket either.  I could have sworn I put it back in the pocket.  I looked around outside and didn't see anything.  I was really puzzled.  I was in a semi-protected area and it wasn't really windy enough there for my notebook to get blown away.  I got in the truck to go and drive back to where I started to look for the phone.  I grabbed to inspect my jacket one more time.  That is when I realized there are interior pockets on both sides of the Ice Armor Jacket, not just one like the Arctic Armor jacket.  The phone and notebook were right where I left them. Doh!

1 Bass
2 Crappie
2 Pike
5 Spottail Shiners
12 Sunfish
14 Perch

Same ole Same Ole

10.5" Glow Demon w/Minnow

4:15-9:45PM Rock Lake My Spot
Conditions: 40-31℉, Partly Cloudy, Light SW Wind

7" Fly Jig w/Jamei and spike

I started out in the waypoint holes using my old Aqua-Vu again.  First fish was a crappie before I had the camera down.  First thing I saw on the camera was a pretty good sized pike.  It was interested in the camera not my presentations.  It stayed for about 5 minutes before moving on.  Eventually some sunnies and crappies showed up.  The fish didn't want anything to do with the minnow and sunfish weren't real big on taking in the Fly so I could get a hookset.  The crappies that came through were very aggressive on the Fly for the most part, except for a really big one that nipped at it once and then left.  I'm guessing it was a 13" fish at least.  I did get one decent bluegill.

8.5" VMC Fly

Got a couple of perch

   I started hole hopping after it got to dark to see with the camera.  I picked up maybe 1 more sunfish.  The rest of the night was spent on crappies to 10.5" and down to 6".

6" VMC Fly

10.25" Glow Demon w/minnow

I'd pick up 2 maybe 3 fish then I'd have to move on.  It was warm enough I never used the heater.  I stayed out until 9:45PM

30 Crappies
18 Sunfish
4 Perch
1 Pike