Upper Red Lake 2-20 to 2-22

Went up late Friday night and slept in on Saturday. At about noon I headed out for the first time with the snowmobile and Voyager in tow. It was very windy with blowing snow making it tough to hole hop. I found a small lake close to my cabin I had never fished before and headed out to try it.. Drilled a long line of holes from 6-15' in search of gills.. I marked lots of fish but it turned out to be a bunch of small gills. I did a little more searching before heading further north to the next lake. Here I found a 20' hole and setup. I marked fish periodically 10 feet below the ice but only hooked into one and it was a nice crappie. I couldn't get anymore to bite and left at about 3PM. After a short trail ride I made it to the next lake to find quite a few people out fishing. This was one of my favorite lakes so I set up in my spot away from the people and waited for the crappies to move in. At Sunset 2 fish moved through quickly. One took down my bobber and I smacked him a nice 11"er. The next one hit my jigging rod and it was another one identical in size. After that the bite died and i didn't see another fish. I headed back at about 6 to get up early the next morning.

I woke up at 6AM and hopped back on the sled to head to another new lake about 15 miles away.. Here I got setup just before the sun rose in 28FOW. I was marking fish right away and dropped down. Instantly a 12"er smacked my jig. As I was putting down my set line down when I saw multiple fish racing upwards to get the minnows. One fish grabbed the minnow and kept going upwards. After 3 or 4 9"ers they started to disappear. It was a clear lake therefore the bite died as soon as the sun appeared. I headed to a lake right next door which I had also never fished at about 830AM.. I found a few locals out there who didn't look to happy to see me. I drilled a ton of holes along a break-line into 20' This lake had a darker stain and therefore weed growth only reached into about 5FOW.. I started at the weed-edge and that's where I stayed. Sight fishing 8-9" gills was really fun and I soon had 5 or 6 nice fish on the ice. At about noon the fish had disappeared so I went hole hopping and found they had moved a bit deeper into 8-10' I caught a few more nice ones but the size factor had declined. 

At 1PM I headed off to the final lake a pit stop on the way back. There I drilled 30-40 holes in a line along a 10-15' weed edge. There I found some big gills in the 9-10" class. I caught 4 pushing 9.5" and 1 was nearing 10" but just shy. They were very aggressive and seemed to be spread evenly in the weeds 10-12' deep. After taking a few for a meal I headed home to catch the football game at 3PM.

We put down all the rattle reels in the permanent and waited for the fish to come.Nothing else came until the middle of the night when we were woken up by a rattle reel spinning at 430 AM. James' dad got up to check it but the fish had dropped the hook. We woke up at 7AM and put thr boxes back out when at about 730 another rattle wheel went off while we were eating. It was Jim's (James' Dad) hole again. This time he hooked into it and knew it was a bigger fish. We all gathered around and James began to take video of the action. After a long fight a nice 27" 7.5lb walleye came through the hole. We snapped a few pictures and put her back down the hole. 

The day brought a long pause before the next fish coming in at around 8PM. We were all laying in bed watching TV when another rattle wheel went off. This time is was Ryan C's and he ran over to the hole is the fish ripped out line. I grabbed the video camera and began to film as he set the hook on another nice fish. After a short fight a 22" 4.5lb eye came up the hole. We again snapped a few pics and she went back down the hole. Shortly thereafter we saw a box was going and ran to retrieve it but the fish had spit the hook by the time I got there. As I was resetting James yelled to me my rattle reel in the house was spinning. I ran back to find the bobber was long gone. I set the hook and got my first fish which was just a small one around 12". That was it for the evening bite so we hit the sack. The moon was full that night so we had anticipation of a good nbight bite but it never happened. We woke up to find blowing winds and a fresh inch of snow on the ice. We packed up early to head back to the cities with no success in the morning hours.

I went out in search of Northern's on a local lake right away after school. We (myself and Ryan) got set-up at about 3 and I was walking back to Ryan's car when I noticed I had a flag up. I ran over to it and after fighting it for a couple minutes (had to pull it through some bad weeds) got it. Went about 23 inches. The perfect eater. So I got back and we were just waiting around for about 10 minutes and another flag pop's up. That one turned out to be about the same length as the first one but not quite as fat. We got everything re-set up. We waited for about 25 minutes with nothing, we decide to hop into his car and warm up. He called it perfectly, I hadn't been sitting down 30 seconds and a flag goes up. I ran out to that one and lost it in the weeds. It was the same hole as the first one. Then Ryan walks a little to the side and notices my other tip-up is up as well. So I throw down the one I am re-setting, and run over. This time the northern had no weeds to get into and I got the last keeper. We re-set and waited in the car. Had the same double thing happen again! But the second time we didn't get either of the two. We had one more flag and it turned out to be a little one. About 14 inches that went back. That was it for the night. All in all a pretty good day. Wish the hook-up percentage was a little better. But I can't complain.

Here are some pic's:

The three we kept.



Two of um.



All three next ot a tape measure.

Turtle Lake Ice Fishing Club Report 12/9/08

Headed out to Turtle on Tuesday with the ice fishing club (10-12 people) with no success. We fished hard punching holes in every which depth but no success. James missed one fish on his box tipup and Robby's friend missed a pike spearing in 9' and that was all. 6-7" of ice plenty for a wheeler but apparently not for a truck since one went through by the beach. Hopefully we will have  better luck at Bald Eagle Lake next week.

NW Wisconsin Ice/Fishing Report 12/6/08

At my cabin in NW Wisconsin most lakes had about 7" of ice but bigger deeper lakes did still have small open spots as of Saturday. After working on the car all of Saturday I made it out for a few hours of fishing Sunday afternoon. Pulling the portable all the way across the lake wasn't the most fun but it payed off at the end of the day. As I set my sucker in the water for the second tipup I saw a flash and the line started ripping out of my hands. I let the fish run for a few feet before setting the hook and pulling up a small pike. After getting nestled into the shack to do some sight fishing I looked over to see I had another flag up. I raced out of the shack to find another hammerhandle northern on the other ends of the line.Finally I got my line down the hole and immediately a sunfish came screaming in and smacked my Kodiak Ice Chubby Jig. This process was repeated until I had multiple 7-8.5" gills in the bucket. The flags went up twice more before I had to head in and one was a 28" pike the other a small bass.Now with a fresh 5" of snow on the ice I was faced with a long 1.5 mile walk back to the cabin. Nice to finally catch some decent fish though!

Ryan

Lake Peltier Ice Fishing Club Report 12/3/08

Headed out to Peltier on Tuesday with a few people from the Ice Fishing club to find the ice had improved to 6". We were fishing tough conditions with a low pressure front coming through and gusty winds. We drilled lines of holes off of Old Mill Road and started to mark some fish immediately. A few perch were caught with a few up to 8" but no crappies or gills. A ways to the south of us the tipups group was fishing who caught 2 pike before heading in. Many flags were missed due to fish picking up the bait to drop it a few feet later. Productive depths seemed to be 12-14' for pike and 12-15 for jigging as well.

Lake Peltier Ice/Fishing Report 11/30/08

After finding Turtle Lake was unfishable in my spots I decided to go check Peltier where I was pleasantly surprised. There I found about 10 other shacks in 2 clusters on either side of the lake. One cluster off of Old Mill Road and one in the Southern bay by the access. I opted to try old mill road where I found 4" of good ice and a few fish. I drilled holes outward from 9-14'I set my tipup with a sucker minnow on a quick strike rig in the shallow hole while I say in my FT Scout over 13'. I started to mark a few fish with the LX-5 mostly coming in on the bottom. I hooked into a few to find small perch and a few crappies even around sunset. Sorry no pictures because my phone doesn't have flash :/

Turtle Lake Ice Report 11/30/08

Got out to check the ice on Turtle and found 4-5" out from the landing all the way out to the small rock bar by the reeds. After that on the other side where it drops off again there is a small ice have running north south where it was open a few days ago. There the thickness dropped to 2" and was not safe. I would venture to say in a few more days you will be able to go past the heave but the middle was still open a bit as of 11/30.

Chisago South Bay Report 11/28/08

Myself and two of my friends (Mitch and David) decided to head out and do some ice fishing Friday. after a relatively slow day on Wednesday in the channel we decided we wanted to try the south bay on Chisago. When we got there we saw a few people out there and knew we were good to go. After unloading our shacks and hitting the ice we found 4-5" consistently out to the middle of the bay.There we were stopped by a large ice heave which had thin ice on the other side.

There I set out my tipup in about 8 feet  of water and we sat to jig in 9-10 for a while. After a short time I noticed the flag up and David got to it first. He connected with a nice 3.5lb bass. By the way in the picture the sun was bright!!!

After that we caught a few small bluegills before it slowed down and we headed out. As we were leaving 3 ATV's came ripping onto the ice at the opening of the bay to the main lake! Luckily they didn't go to far from shore and made it back off ok. We decided now that we wanted to go check the A-Frame area for ice. We knew of a spot in the area where we could get out to check the ice and found 2" only a few yards off shore. That was enough for me to call it off and wait a little longer.

Chisago/South Center Report 11/26/08

After hearing reports of fisherman hitting the ice on the bay of South Center Lake in Lindstrom a buddy and I decided we wanted to try for some panfish. We found a way to get onto the bay and quickly found there was plenty of solid ice. After drilling a few holes we found 5"s of clear solid ice.

Be careful in the bay of South Center though because there is a large pressure ridge running down the length of the bay which has opened up to about 5 feet wide. We jumped around to all our holes and threw a bunch of lures at them but no biters. After about an hour of fishing the bay my friend and I decided we wanted to try the channel between Chisago and South Lindstrom Lake. We went back and reported our findings to Frankies Bait and Tackle in Chisago City and he directed us to the channel. When we got to the landing there were already a few people out there. We tested the ice with a spud bar on the way out and drilled a hole to find 3"s of solid clear ice. We ventured out and to the right from the access until we found 12FOW.

I drilled about 10 holes and then set up a tip up in about 11 feet 2 feet up off the bottom. After about 20 minutes I watched the flag spring up and quickly ran over to retrieve it. I was using a quick strike rig which consists of 2 treble hook 1 is inserted just behind the head of the minnow the other just behind the dorsal fin. After a short lived fish I had a 20" pike my first fish of the 08-09 ice season.

We caught a few more small crappies (6-8"s) and then another flag went up right at sunset. It was another pike around 20"s and put up a good fight. We stuck around for the brilliant sunset down the length of the channel before heading off the lake and calling it a night!

Good Fishin!

Ryan 

Bemidji/Upper Red Lake Trip 11/24-11/25 2008 

Myself, Chris, Bob Bohland and Richie Bohland all decided to take a trip to find some ice in the Bemidji area.. We left the cities in Bob's truck at around 3:30 Monday morning stopping at his cabin in Crosby to get some rest. We got back up at 7 and headed to Jesse's bait shop in town (Oars n Mine) to pick up Bob's new auger which he named Cynthia (long story) and a few other things we needed. From there we trekked over to Brainerd to stop at Marcum headquarters and pick up my new LX-5! We got back on the road at about 9am arriving in Bemidji at 11. After stopping at Richie's apartment to drop the stuff off we headed to the local Chinese restaurant to get some chow. At around 1 we were headed to the first lake of the year. We checked the ice as we ventured out finding a consistent 3"s. Once we were out to 20' we drilled a bunch of holes with the Strikemaster Lazer Hand Auger and dropped our jigs down. We marked lots of fish but they were all close to the bottom and tight lipped. After a few hours we had only convinced a few bluegills to bite and decided to hit a new lake.After a short drive we arrived at a small lake with no tracks to be seen. We were the first ones to venture onto this lake. Bob ventured onto the ice with his chisel checking every step. We drilled a hole a ways out to find a solid 6"s of ice. We walked to the spot as the sun dipped below the trees. Again we marked numerous fish on the bottom or suspended just off but only got a few bites before we left. We regrouped overnight for the URL trip the next day.

We got up at 4:30 AM to start making our  way north to the legendary Upper Red Lake. We arrived at JR's Campground at around 6:30 and got our stuff together. We were out on the lake at first light and found 7-8"s of ice up to a mile out. The ice had frozen in waves in many areas making it hard to travel. We drilled our first holes in 7' and marked a few fish but no biters. We moved out to 10-12' and marked many active fish but couldn't connect on the bites. Many people including myself fell asleep in their shacks after getting little sleep the previous night.Then from outside the shack I woke up to Chris peering in the window holding a walleye saying, "You ever seen one of these before?"After a few more hours the fish had stopped biting and we headed back home.After a long drive we arrived back in the cities to get some much needed rest.

The Arden Hills Youth Archery Hunt

Thursday AM- Me and my dad saw a few deer but they were all at or a little past 100 yards.

Thursday PM- Moved the stands to a new spot where we had seen deer come through. We saw more and I hit a small doe but we were unable to find her. We tracked her for about 200 yards Thursday night and then another 200 yards friday morning but never found her.

Friday AM- Moved back to the first spot We didn't see anything unfortunately.

Friday PM-I got into the same stand I had hunted on Thursday night hoping to get see some deer again. Well as I was sitting there looking around I see 2 does milling about in the field in front of me. They were well over 200 yards away. As I am watching them I notice 3 more deer in another part of the field. As I am watching both groups I notice that the second group is slowly moving toward me. They come over a small hill and I am thinking I might have a 30 yard shot at one of them. Then all of the sudden the biggest one (a big doe) splits and darts off. The other 2 (small bucks) bolt also but they stop at the base of the tree my stand is in. As I am sitting there watching them hoping the bigger of the two, the 6 would walk out a little further, the small one looks strait at me. HE figured out something was there and kept looking at me until the 6 started pushing his antlers into the smaller deer. They both start walking out and when they got to about 12-13 yards I smashed the 6 pointer. They both ran about 75 yards stopped and the 6 fell over.

Not so recent..

 Yellow Lake, Burnett County NW Walleyes 7-26-08/7-27-08 

Got out there about 5 on Saturday night with Chris_the_Cow and we hammered them on crawlers. We got our six fish then my dad came out for an hour or so around dark so we could take 3 more. We threw lots of fish back in the 12-15" class. Frustrating throwing those 14 3/4"ers back since the limit is now 3 over 15"s... We decided to go back out on Sunday morning as well. We got a late start but got out there by about 7AM and we were off the lake at about 230. Met up with a guy I was talking to who knows his stuff named Don to see how he was doing as we weren't getting many. He said he did good in the morning then it shut off around 7. We caught a few small ones and lots of perch. Later in the day right after Don left the clouds moved in, the winds picked up, we moved spots and we started catching fish like crazy. We got lots of doubles and quickly had our limit and started exchanging some 15"ers for 16's. My dad came out for another hour after that and we took 3 more. Chris got 2 really nice fish 1 18 3/4" and 1 19"er! Great day on the water with another limit of 9 between 16 and 19'"s. All the fish we caught were on Lindy rigs, red or orange hook with a crawler or leech.
Good Fishin'
Ryan

First Picture is our first limit of walleyes (sorry pic is bad because my phone has no flash)

Second Pic is me holding a couple nice ones

Third is out Limit from Sunday Morning (the two at the top are the big ones 18 3/" and 19"

Good Fishin'
Ryan

Turtle Lake (Shoreview) 6-13-08

Spring 08' (Posted 6-13-08)

Overall it was a pretty bad spring for me. I got a total of maybe a dozen crappies on my small lake. I think the main factor was cool water for so long and then the temps jumped from the mid to upper 50's right up to 70 causing a fast crappie spawn. Bass action was very good most fish coming on terminator spinner baits in bright colors with gold blades.The Sunfish have just started to heat up as the water is around 65 or 70 in Northern WI. The mayfly hatch has also taken place in mush of Wisconsin and as far north as Mille Lacs in MN. This hatch has really slowed the walleye bite to a crawl since they have so much food readily available. Overall a decent spring for everything except the crappies for me because the spawn was almost nonexistent this year. I guess that just means more fish next year!

Good Fishin'

Ryan

Chris and Ryan Metro Lake, LATE Ice.

Saturday-April 12

We decided to give it one last go if we could get out there. We found a spot and my dad dropped Ryan and myself off.  We dragged our stuff half way across the lake to our spot. We drilled quite a few holes but after a while noticed that there was a lot of holes out there you just had to look. And we are lucky we didn't fall in this one! It looked like an old spear hole.

 I don't remember who caught the first fish but it was slow and steady until about 7 o'clock.  When it really slowed down so we decided to head in. We ended the day with 6 crappies and a few sunfish. We should have had more but due to break-offs and losing fish at the hole. Ryan also caught a walleye. He was probably about 14 inches.

Sunday-April 13 

We decided to head out again because of how nice the fish were the day before.  We got out there this time my dad came with and I dropped down right away. I pulled up a nice 8 inch sunfish. I dropped down again, this time up comes a beautiful 11.75 inch crappie! After Ryan caught one. My dad caught one and then I caught another one that was probably close to 11 inches. Ryan moved over a few holes and pulled up two nice crappies. I had one up to the hole that was probably close to 11.5 inches. After we caught 7, I think we were all seeing limits of crappies in the near future. But that didn't happen. After that we caught maybe 2 more fish. One nice keeper gill and a small crappie or two.

Me with my biggest two.   11.75 and 11.25                                                              Ryan and his biggest.  11 and 10.75

Chris-Lake Pokegama 4/5/08

I got up at 4:30 so we could get on the lake before sun-up, or at least that's what the plan was. We got on the road by 5:15 and were at the landing we wanted to get out on at a few minutes after 6. It was just starting to get light out side but we could see that the ice was out, about 30 feet. So off we went to a different landing. We got too the south one to find out that you could get on but you just had to go in the right spot. My dad got the wheeler out and I got most of the gear out. We headed to the far side of the lake and it was quite a ride. The propane tank fell off once and the pak shack twisted off once. Well we finally got down there. It was about a mile ride up to where we wanted to  fish. We dropped down some lines as soon as we got there and after about 30 seconds we realized the fish were only a few feet under the ice. We caught 2 right away and then the bite almost stopped I moved around a lot and my dad got one more. While I was moving around my dad caught a white bass. It was about 15 inches so we decided to keep it. I caught a few smaller crappies but that was it. We tried a spot that produced for some crappies but also a lot of sunfish a few weeks earlier. We found very few fish and the ones we did find wouldn't bite. So we moved to another spot about a quarter mile away. We marked a bunch of fish and caught 3 keepers but by this time we had to go so we left with 3 sunfish, 3 crappies and 1 white bass.

Ryan's Cabin NW WI

Friday 4/4/08

Friday morning I got up at about 9 O' Clock had breakfast and headed out to the lake. It was warm that day reaching 60 degrees even in Northern Wisconsin. The shoreline we are on (North Side) was starting to melt from the previous few days being unusually warm and lows not getting below freezing. I got to one of my better spots on the lake and drilled 35-40 holes scattered about some in the weeds some not. I started in the deeper holes not getting anything so i moved up into the weeds and weed edges and found some gills. It started with tons of small ones but every 7 or 8 fish i would pick off a nice one like this.

8.5" gill caught on custom painted jig red and black horizontal style

By noon i had 7 or 8 gills over 8 inches so i went in to eat some lunch. I stayed in for a while due to the bucking wind but went back out around 5 and stayed from then until dark. My friend Mitch came up to do some ice fishing with me that night and the next day. We got a lot more fish in the 7-8" range this time and threw most of them back but Mitch got 1 real nice 8.25"er here.

We called it a night and the bite slowed quickly as the sun dropped down.

Saturday 4/5/08

Saturday morning we opted to sleep in until 10 since there wasn't much of a morning bite the day before. We ate and headed out to the lake. This morning the ice was a bit of a trick to get to with the snowmobile and voyager. You had to get some speed going to skip a few feet of water before you got to the ice. We went back to the same spot but today we found the fish to be out a bit deeper and not really relating to any structure just out in the mud flats. I was still using my homemade jig while Mitch used the standby Firetiger Gill Pill(Custom Jigs&Spins) Today it seemed like the fish were much more bunched up in certain areas and every once in a while you would find that hot hole and pick of 3 or 4 really nice fish! The bite in our area slowed by 1 or 2 O' Clock. At this point we had about 15 keeper bluegills all over 8"s biggest right around 8.5".

 We got to the new spot outside a shallow mucky bay right on a definite weed line. The fish are really starting to stage in spawning locations at this time of the year and dark bottomed bays are key areas for spawn. We drilled about 30 holes jumping around quickly fishing them all. We found most of the fish in this area were on the weed edges or just outside them. We also found some very nice perch in this area 4 at 10- 10.5"s here is one of them.

There wasn't much for bluegills on the other hand. The area we were in had the bay coming out and a weed line at the opening to the main lake then further out a weed point that sticks out from the mainland. We found all of the gills to be stacked up on the deeper muddy area outside the bay toward the weed point, the perch on the other-hand were in the weeds entering the bay. We released all the perch and caught a few small gills and decided to go back to the old spot to try to stick it out for a few more. By 6 o' clock we had an even 20 fish and since Mitch doesn't fillet fish I figured that would be enough to feed 4 people and my hand would probably fall off if i had to do anymore. Here is the catch from Friday and Saturday.

Sunday 4/6/08

Sunday I woke to a very nice morning but we had to head back to the cities early. The ice around our shore was now out 6 or 7 feet therefore inaccessible by snowmobile with the voyager. I took a few planks my rod bag and a scoop and headed out to the usual spot for an hour. After a 10 minute walk I scooped out a few holes and started fishing. After 10 minutes at the most it started raining. Immediately after the rain started I pulled up 2 nice 8.5" Pumpkinseeds right on the weed line. Both CPR'ed (Catch, Picture, Released)

I fished hard for another 45 minutes catching a bunch of 7-7.5"ers and many smaller than. The rain seemed to really turn on the fish and the harder it rained the harder they bit. Nearing the end of my 1 hour time limit I pulled up the fish I had been waiting for the whole weekend. A dandy 8.75" Bluegill that was extremely heavy. I snapped a few pictures right as I got the call to come back in! Here it is definitely one of my biggest this season and the best part was seeing her swim back!

Good Fishin'

Ryan

Four Lake Weekend 3/28/08-3/30/08

Friday 3/28/08 Lake Mille Lacs

After getting word of a huge crappie bite on Lake Mille Lacs we decided to leave promptly after school for the "Big Pond". We arrived at Wahkon Bay at around 5 o'clock and met up with one of Chris' dads friends. He said so far all he had gotten was small perch and we knew right away we were in for the, "You guys should have been here 2 days ago!" type of deal. We went out and found some holes since the bay was littered with them and dropped down our lines with the same luck as everyone else(2" perch) We fished in the bay for about an hour before we got tired of the perch and moved out of the bay off a point. Same deal small perch. We did this search process about 3 times over all with the same results and decided to head back to the bay. As we witnessed a beautiful sunset Chris hooked into the only keep-able fish we would get that night which turned out to be a 9 " gill. After another disappointing trip we headed back home with no fish in the bucket and a night where your head hits the pillow and your out! Here is a picture of the sunset and shortly after Chris' 9" gill. By the end of the day we came up with 2 new names for the bay, Wahkoff Bay and Stayoff Bay :)

Saturday 3/29

 Five Thirty Saturday morning it was rise and shine as we headed off to an east central lake. We got on the lake at about 7 just after sunrise and on the first few drop downs picked up some really nice crappies and a few nice gills. Later on around 9 we started getting a lot more gills coming in mostly on the smaller side but a few toppling 8"s. At about 11 the bite subsided and we decided to make a move over by an island in about 15 FOW. I kicked open a hole and dropped down getting a few small crappies and after 2 or 3 a keeper. Chris couldn't buy a bite at this time I don't know what it was so we set up the shack over my hole and drilled a few more. Over the next few hours we picked up 3 more crappies and 2 more gills before we went over to talk to 2 other guys who were doing really well. We talked to them for about an hour and by the time we got back to the shack the bite had died. We decided we had enough of it by then and packed it up to hit another lake on the way home. The other lake isn't even worth a report since i just got 6 or 7 small crappies and Chris got nothing. Needless to say we packed up and went home. Here is the days catch!

Sunday 3/30

On the final day of our fishing filled weekend we decided to hit a metro lake for a few hours at about 2:30 Chris came and picked me up. When we got to the lake there was a truck and 2 cars out there but we opted not to rick it and just walked out. First we talked to a few guys on the way out who said they got 12 nice gills so we decided to stop and try their holes on the way to our other spot since it is right along the way. We ended up marking quite a few but they wouldn't bite very hard. I made a few presentation changes but it was still a no go. We picked up a few small ones and moved on. The two vehicles that were on the lake were very spread out right over my favorite spot so we had to sneak around them and find the right depth. It took us a while but eventually we found 5-10 FOW and did a little fishin. We found shortly after that we had parked over the preschool! Chris got 1 nice gill and believe it or not a carp! We fished for a bit longer and decided to try the spot we were at earlier on our way in. I started fishing and right away i found there mood had changed as i picked up 6 or 7 6"ers. about 15 minutes later i hooked into a nice one on the Gill Pill by Custom Jigs & Spins. I got it up and it was very close to 8 inches so we threw him in the bucket. After that is was all over... Chris got bored and fell asleep on the ice but when he woke up we left...

Heres a few pictures. Oh and sorry we have so many of the carp we were really fascinated by him! He  was also very good to eat.

Ryan's Cabin NW WI 3/20/08-3/23/08

Thursday 3/20

 We got to Ryan's cabin around 1 o'clock, so we decided to try out on his lake for a few hours before heading over to our crappie lake. We got onto Ryan's lake and found a spot that had produced earlier in the year. We set up right off the weed-line and started fishing. In about 5 minutes we had caught 3-4 fish. We continued to fish for 20 more minutes with nothing to show for our efforts. Ryan went out and drilled some holes and started fishing them. Ben and myself were soon to follow. After fishing those holes and moving around we said enough and packed up and headed to the crappie lake. We set up in 35 feet of water and started fishing. After about 20 minutes we had a school of crappies move through and Ryan caught two while myself and Ben got none. I moved my dead stick up to where the fish had moved through but it was to late. Ben did also but it was again to late. After 30 more minutes of nothing, Ryan went out and drilled some holes. The shallowest hole he was marking fish and couldn't get them to bite. He came back to the house and told us he was marking fish so I decided to go try it while he retied. I could raise the fish but none would bite... Ryan got back and after jigging for a little while he pulled up a small perch. I moved out one hole and had 2 suspended marks. I lowered down to right above the highest one and he came up and looked like he was going to bite it but didn't. All of the sudden the 2nd mark moved up very quickly and slowed when it got to my jig. If I would have had my spring bobber that fish would have been in the bucket but I couldn't get it reattached and so I went out without it. Big mistake because I missed this fish which would have been the 3rd crappie of the day which doesn't sound like much but on the lake we were on getting two is above average.

By, Chris

Friday 3/21

By, Chris

We got up at about 6:30 and ate breakfast. After that we finished loading Ryan's mom's SUV and headed to the lake where i got that beautiful 9.5inch sunfish a few weeks earlier. We ended up getting lost on the way there so we stopped at a gas station that also had wax worms which we had forgotten at the house. I walked in got some waxies and directions to the lake and we were off. Well we got to the spot the guy told us about and we went down the hill and we were on the lake (check our video page for that hill). We finally made it to our spot and started fishing. It was kind of slow, a few small sunfish and maybe one or two that made 7 inches.Shortly after we moved to a new spot Ryan came running over to our shack with a nice 13" crappie. He said " I have been site fishing over in about 9 Feet of Water and seen many crappies and sunfish come through. I was just sitting there hand jigging when all of a sudden this mammoth came in and mauled my bait. Well that was enough for us to move shallow. We did and we fished a few different sets of holes. We found deep water in-between two big shallow flats, we think it is an old creek channel. But back to fishing, myself and Ben moved to about 8 feet only farther up the lake and after only a few small sunfish Ben set his rod down and exclaimed "I give up!" Well little did he know that in about 10 seconds he would get the biggest sunfish of the trip. I look over and his rod is bent over and sliding towards his hole, I yell to him "Ben your rod!!!" He grabbed it and set the hook and pulled up a sunfish just a little smaller than mine from 2 weeks earlier. After another hour or two we decided to head back to Ryan's lake to fish a different spot. 

We got back and fished his lake for a little while and caught a few. We moved around caught a few more and called it a day!

Saturday 3/22

By, Ryan

Saturday morning we tried a new lake only about 20 acres but had no lake map. We got to the lake at around 9 o'clock and drilled holes from the roadside access out to the middle of the lake. Chris walked behind me with his Marcum LX-3 checking the depths. We found the lake was essentially a bowl style and dropped to 44'. We tried each depth range all the way out and didn't even mark a fish. Needless to say we were about ready to leave when i decided to walk over to a spot someone else had been and drilled a lot of holes. We drilled a few in the area and Chris mentioned he was marking a few but couldn't get them to bite. After countless swing and misses by Chris we decided to set the shack up near him and throw the camera down to see what they were. Before i could do that Chris finally hooked into one and it was just a small bluegill. Ben was bored since he didn't have a Marcum or Vexilar which was a necessity on this lake so he was out writing his name in the snow and stuff. After not getting another fish we decided to go back to my small lake where we have a chance at some fish. On our way off around 1:30 we saw some locals coming out and drilling holes with a hand auger so we decided we would go see if they knew anything about the lake. We thought we would drill them a few holes and they told us they can usually get some nice gills up shallow and if the timing is right. Ben and Chris talked to the older guy while Ryan was drilling holes. He said they get some really nice crappies mid-winter out there.

Back at our lake we decided to go back across the lake to the holes we drilled the day before and fish those until dinner at 5. We got 7 or 8 nice gills and 2 more nice perch around 10"s. We had to make dinner that night so we went back at 4 o'clock to clean the fish and fry them up for dinner.

After dinner we decided to go back to the spot we tried Thursday night which turned out to be a mistake since we didn't even mark a fish in the hour we were there. We packed up our gear and headed back in early so we could get up the next morning.

Sunday 3/23

By, Ryan

Sunday morning we got up semi-early at about 8:00AM. We got out on the lake by 8:30 and trekked up to the NE corner on the edges of a large weed point. While Ben and Chris set up the Fish Trap Voyager i went out and about drilling holes all over. After drilling over 40 holes i returned to the shack to get my stuff and fish the holes i just drilled. Ben and Chris opted to stay in the shack because they thought it was too cold out (sissies). I started on the deeper holes which really weren't that deep just further from shore maybe 5FOW. After fishing the first 10 holes i had 1 small gill so i moved all the way into the one closest to shore just outside the weed edge. I immediately had a nice 8 inch bluegill inhale my bait. I did the same thing 3 more times in that hole and then moved on to the next one. I dropped down and same thing immediately got 2 or 3 more nice ones. Again i moved to another hole and as soon as i dropped down i had a monster hit my Gill Pill(Firetiger). I got the fish to the top of the hole and I knew it was a dandy gill my estimation is around 10"s when it straightened my hook and got away. I dropped down a few more times but couldn't get anything so i went back to the shack to tell Chris and Ben what i got. So far they had a small perch and had seen some nice gills but no keepers... Chris opted to come out with me this time after seeing what i got but Ben stayed in the shack because he felt too sick to come outside. Chris and I fished hard for and hour or two catching numerous fish over 7"s and 1 or two that tipped the scale and 9"s. Ben came out later after not getting anything in the shack and said he was going to go back to the cabin and sleep. Chris and I continued hopping around to all our holes and drilled a few more.... At about 11 o' clock we had 18 keeper gills and were just about ready to head in. Chris and I agreed we wanted an even 20 fish so we each went to some new holes and immediately Chris pulled out a nice one while i was out a bit further ripping out the preschoolers... Chris kept on going at it and got 3 keepers in that hole and I got 1 and we decided to call it a day at 11:30. All in all Sunday's fishing really made the weekend worthwhile. It was fun morning of gill fishing and i look forward to another soon.

Pokegama Panfish 3/16/08

After talking to a nice guy in Gander Mountain we decided to hit Pokegama early the next morning. He said the bite died off after 10am, so we got there early. We had lines down by about 7:45. Well after I caught 2 crappies and 1 sunfish, we decided to set up the house. I was half-way through the first hole when I realized that I was getting no where fast. I finished that hole after about 4 more minutes and some help from Ryan. After I was done we all looked at the blades and one of the bolts came out so the one blade stuck out and down, which made it near impossible to drill a hole. We were able to borrow someone else's auger and get 4 holes drilled. We set-up and started fishing. We were picking up a few sunfish and crappies. Some would come up and just suck it in while others wouldn't hit at all. Well after fishing for a while I had a nice mark come up, cover my bait and about 3 seconds later, I had the hardest hit of the day. It turned out to be a nice 9 inch sunfish. As the day progressed the fishing got slower, the guy we met at Gander MTN was out there and we talked to him as he was leaving, he had done good for how long he was out there. We got back into the house for the best half-hour of the day. We probably threw in over 10 sunfish and a few crappies. Then things basically died off so we went to try a few other spots on the lake. I drilled Ryan a hole and went to drill another hole 25 yards away. So as soon as I hit the gas on the auger the shaft didn't spin. I lifted up the head and the auger shaft fell over. I managed to find a clip in the truck to hold it. Those spots didn't turn out so we went back and I dropped a line down and a fish came kinda slowly up to my lure. I figured I wasn't going to catch it because when this had happened other times I couldn't convince the fish to bite. He did bite and I was reeling it up and my drag was coming out more than any other fish. And I said "MY drag isn't set that light..." Ryan says "Well you probably have a nice fish." Which I didn't hear but I never thought that it would be a big fish until it got to where i could see it. Well I got it to the top of the ice and my line snapped... I dropped my rod and reached down and threw water and luckily the fish into the house. Man was that exciting! Well it turned out to be the nicest fish of the day,
The pic makes it look huge but it was just a 9.5 incher, which is still big.



After that things slowed but we caught them at a steady pace. Oh I forgot to mention that my Marcum battery died after 6 hours of use... Ryan's died too but luckily we had a deep cycle with and could run them off of that.



Overall a good day on the ice,

Metro Pannies, Friday, March 15th

Got out on a metro lake today to do some Bluegills and Crappie fishing. When i got to the lake the landing was pretty beat up so we didn't drive out very far i opted to walk. The spot was on the edge of a small rock bar that comes up to 3 feet or so and drops to 25 on the other side. I drilled about 6 holes to start with and started hopping around to them for the first 30 minutes or so. I worked my way from the 25 all the way up to 5 feet. I found the highest concentrations of fish to be up in the 5 feet. So i set up the shack there and caught 2 dandy gills right off the bat on the gill pill in firetiger color. Later on around 4 or so i was starring down my hole since i was sight fishing when suddenly my gill pill just disappeared. i hand lined him up and it was a nice 10.5" crappie. Now it was getting dark out and i knew due to previous knowledge of the lake that the crappies are notorious for suspending under the ice over about 10 FOW. So i moved out and was marking a few here and there and got a bite on the jigging rap but missed. I had a minnow in the other hole set 4 feet down so 1-2 feet under the ice when suddenly it jolted down and back up. I set the hook and pulled up a nice 11" crappie. After that i just marked a few more but couldn't get a reaction. Overall a pretty good day on a metro lake!

Good Fishin'

Ryan

NW Wisconsin, Friday-Sunday, March 7th, 8th and 9th

Chris and I got out on a few lakes this past weekend to chase around some panfish. Friday we went to a large lake and set up in 32FOW. We each dropped down a minnow and various other jigging presentations from small jigs to jigging raps and spoons. Chris and I started marking fish at 26 feet suspended and the first few were very aggressive racing up to whatever you threw at them. We picked up 2 small crappies at first maybe 9"s and 6"s. The fish were very turned off after maybe an hour after dark when suddenly a large red mark at 20 feet came in on my MarCum. I brought my jig up to the fish and he smacked it. Got it up and it was a beautiful 11" crappie. After that the marks started disappearing and the fish were gone. We left around 8PM knowing we wanted to get out early the next morning to try a new lake.

 At 530 the next morning we got up and headed out to a small shallow lake to try to find some early morning gills. After no luck in the first spot for 30 minutes we decided to pack up and head north on the snowmobiles for a day trip to a new lake. We looked at a map and found a 20' hole in the north end of the lake with some nice weedy flats around it. When we got there 10 miles later we drilled some holes and decided to set up in 13FOW. On the first few drops we each got a few small crappies with one 10"er mixed in for the bucket. Half hour later Chris hooked into a real nice fish. He pulled it up and we were both jumping for joy. It was a dandy 9.5" bluegill! (picture doesn't do it justice)

 Fishing just got better up until 12 o' clock when it started slowing. We got 5 more bull gills over 8"s with many smaller fish mixed in. Around 3PM we ran out of hot dogs so i had to run up to the store and grab some more. When i got back Chris was in a tangle with a nice bass! We got a few pictures and let her go... Around 4 or so the bite really picked up again and we picked up 6 more nice bluegills and many other small ones. Right around dark we got 3 or 4 small crappies then it shut down once it was dark. We stayed for another half hour in hopes of a few crappies moving threw but nothing happened. We headed back home after a good day of fishing.

The next morning(Sunday) we got back out there around 10 after a much deserved long night of sleep we headed back out for a few hours. We picked up many more small sunfish this time but still got 2 8.5"ers and 1 8"er. Over all it payed off to try out the new lake and it was fun striking some gold on our own. We ended the weekend with 15 nice bluegills, one brute and 2 nice crappies. We will have 1 or 2 videos from the trip shortly under the new video page.

Good Fishin'

Ryan

Chisago Lake, Sunday, March 1st.

I was out on Chisago with an friend (Ben) who hadn't been out fishing for a month due to work. We got out there, drilled a few holes and decided to try a few holes in about 10 Feet of water, because this was where we had done good earlier in the year. After catching a few sunfish we decided to set up the house. Once Ben was set-up and I was getting the heater started when my dad decided he was going to go try another small lake that we have fished before and done well on. I missed a few fish and after I got sick of the air bubbles on my Marcum, I switched sides and fished in the hole right next to Ben with a bobber. Because it seemed that he was getting more bites. I wasn't as hot as he was but I caught a few and all of the sudden I see Ben set the hook and his drag just started buzzing. He said it was set rather lite but I didn't think lite enough to let a 8 inch sunfish take as much as it wanted. So I was ready to grab whatever came up his hole but when I relize it was just a keeper sunny I just went back to fishing. So into the bucket that one went and then we started catching some smaller sunnies and I decided to set my bobber rod. After this I was hopeing to get something big because this was the last weekend walleye and northern was open. Unfortunatley I think I got one bite on that all night. So after a while of catching small sunfish I saw my dad's truck pull up and I was wondering how he did because of our sucess out there about this time of year last year. He said he caught 1 perch, a small one. So I was glad we decided to stay on Chisago. It was better than not catching anything.  The sun now went down and the sunfish started to die off we were hopeing the crappies would move in. Like anticipated they did but it was hard to get um' to bite. Fish were caught on just about anything but the most number's and keepers came on T.H.E. Jig. We ended out the night with only a few crappies and a few sunnies.