Here are a few pics from my most recent trip, this was the cause of a lot of problems and keeping us from going to the island we were headed to. Dear Volvo, your outdrives suck.
Although we ended up about 150 miles short of where we wanted to go and only managed to fish for 3 hours we made the best of a not so good situation by mixing in some diving and clamming, and of course we ate really well.
I have only ice fished once and it was not pleasant or successful, that could be because I was by myself and had no idea what I was doing but maybe I will try again someday. In the mean time I will be leaving tomorrow to fish the best place on earth, the Sea of Cortez on this mothership. Spoilered for size. Spoiler
I am paddling about 7 miles a week from today to meet up with the rest of my family at a campsite in the Boundary Waters and camp there for the weekend. Its the first time I've paddled solo anywhere near that far and there's three portages too... I'll be navigating through three lakes to get into the fourth. The only two years in the past 13 years were the past two so it will feel good to get paddling and fishing again. There's a 1 3/4 mile trail from the lake we'll be staying on for a couple days and it leads to a very pristine lake that is packed with fish. My uncle will be bringing a 14 foot canoe so my mission will be hiking through the trail, which might as well be a deer trail, and portaging the canoe and some fishing gear into the lake and landing some fish. This is a view from where the trail ends and you can see down the lake. The weather is calling for a 30% chance of rain but otherwise perfect temperatures. It's gonna be a good trip.
If you ever venture out on the ice again, let me know and I'll point you in the right direction and let you know some of the finer points. The right equipment on the right spot makes all the difference between freezing your ass off and not catching any fish and staying toasty warm inside and out while putting some filets in the pan.
The trick is to buy an Ice Castle drop down ice house. I've had a few permanent houses in the past but this year I'll likely be buying an Ice Castle. Then I bring my Fish Trap with and go out during the day and come back in the evening and spend the night comfortably at 70 degrees with a few rattle reels deployed.
Be careful with the Ice Castles, especially if you're getting a used one. A lot of people have had problems with the frame warping because they used pretty light steel for a while. If you're looking to buy a perm, a King Crow frame is the Cadillac of fish house frames. Before you buy, you should go to the ice fishing show in early December in St Paul. They have hundreds of models set up on the show floor and you can walk through them, inspect them, and ask questions about all of them. And as a public service announcement, remember to put a full charge on your Vexilar battery every 2-3 months or so. Now would be a good time to do so.
If you're talking about the underwater fish camera, do you have one? If so, which one? I've never used one, and would love to hear your take on it. Personally, I don't have any electronics that I use for fishing, other than my iPhone/iPod. (I use the Cabella's iPhone app, and listen to podcasts while I'm floating in the lakes in my float tube). I can see using a fish finder and depth sounder for fishing out of a boat, but kind of chuckle when I see those guys with the fish finders attached to their belly boats. Anyone care to share their thoughts/experiences on fishing electronics?
For ice fishing electronics, I have a Lowrance iFinder H20c, a Vexilar FL-18, and an Aqua-Vu camera. In order of importance, it's Vexilar (flasher/sonar), H20c (GPS), and camera. If I get to the lake and I don't have my Vex, I'm turning around. I don't care if it's 2 hours each way, I'm not fishing without my Vex. Without it, you don't know #1) if there's any fish down there, #2) what depth they're at, and #3) if there's a fish looking at your bait. They are so sensitive that once you get good at it, you can even tell if you have a 1/2" worm on your hook in 30 feet of water. If you go ice fishing without a Vexilar, you might as well be dropping your line in the toilet. If you want to freeze, not catch any fish, and hate ice fishing forever, leave your Vex at home. My H20c is a great little tool. I have the Lakemaps chip, so I have detailed maps of nearly every fishable lake in Minnesota in a portable device the size of a sandwich. Some of them are so detailed they have contour maps of 1 foot increments. Others are only in 5 foot increments. I'll use these maps to scout potential hot spots and then let it lead me right to the spot. Of course I then have to poke a hole and drop the Vex to see if there's anything down there, but the GPS sure beats the hell out of blindly wandering around and drilling holes until you find a productive spot. You can eliminate a lot of dead water really fast. The camera is a fun tool, but it's not essential by any means. It can be really helpful to determine if you're right on the edge of a break line or weed line. It can also tell you what kind of forage is down there. I can generally tell what type of bottom I'm fishing on by reading my Vexilar, but sometimes I have to pop the camera down when I just to be sure. To be honest, it's kind of a pain in the ass. It's extra weight and getting it set up, turned on, and aimed in the right direction is pretty tricky and time consuming. It keeps the women and less dedicated fishermen from getting bored, though, so that's a good thing. If you want to be a productive fisherman, whether it be open water or hard water, you can't do it today without utilizing some form of sonar and GPS.
Thanks for that. Never been ice fishing before. We get a lot of frozen lakes around here, but really, the water that freezes in my neck of the woods is so small that the fish die pretty quickly after that happens. The mountain lakes with the monsters in them have aerators to keep the ice from freezing, maintained by the Ministry or the local fishing lodges/guides. Some of the trophy fish are pulled out of private lakes that are aerated. The type of fishing I do is either in a stream that you're walking, like for Steelhead, etc., or in something that's shallow enough that I just use a simple lead line to figure out the depth from my float-tube. When we go salmon fishing or (now) sturgeon, yeah, sonar is a must-have. We've found it's just easier to get a guide who's got the boat and all the gear. Sure, it might seem like it's more expensive, but it's cheaper in the long run. By far the biggest asset I have are the contour maps of the lakes, and most of them come from backwoods/fishing map books that you get for $25. The next most important thing are the Forest Ministry's logging road maps, as most of these lakes are in the middle of the mountains and have minimal roads into them, and they sure as hell aren't on any GPS's. Hell, the road to my house, on a lake, isn't even on the GPS, and there's a provincial park on the south end. The biggest lakes I fish are about 1/2 a mile across, and usually pretty shallow. Cold as fuck, but shallow.
I don't think they die. If they died every winter, they wouldn't come back every spring. As far as winter kills go, low dissolved O2 levels don't have differing effects on fish of different ages. Young an old, large and small are all effected at the same rate by depleted oxygen. The only variable that matters is species because some species like bullheads can hold out longer than some others. Not much longer, but bullheads are always the last fish alive during a winterkill. The downfall with GPS is that they have to send a survey boat out there and run grids across the lake. In the more remote areas, you probably aren't going to be so lucky as I am in that respect. On the other hand, your best asset is knowing your area, whereas someone from outside the immediate are would have no idea these lakes even exist.
I'm in the same boat[har har har] with having a Vexilar. I have a Marcum though, they are basically the same thing. I also have a Garmin GPS with lake contour software. I would like to get a nice underwater camera but it's pretty low on the priority list. While a Vexilar/Marcum is pretty necessary for ice fishing, a camera is more of a novelty item. I haven't owned a boat yet[friends have them so no point in me buying one] but I wouldn't leave without a good sonar/locator and a GPS again.
I do alot of saltwater trout fishing. Usually, I use a double jig with 4" curly tail lures. It has always worked awesome for me. I will use a "flourescent red," (which actually looks like bright pink) and "flourescent yellow." The company that makes them is called Love's Lures. Well, apparently, you can't buy them anymore. I have even emailed the site directly, and have yet to get an answer. Can anyone point me in the right direction for a curly tail lure that is at least kinda close to being the same thing? I would highly appreciate it. Thank you.
Like a plain old twister tail? Mister Twister probably makes some pretty big ones. Also check out Phantom. They sell replacement tails for their muskie lures. I don't know if they're exactly what you're looking for, though. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.phantomlures.com/pages/accessories.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.phantomlures.com/pages/accessories.php</a> B-fish-N makes some great plastics that we use on the Mississippi River all of the time. 5" grub. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bfishntackle.com/5inch_kgrub.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bfishntackle.com/5inch_kgrub.html</a> 4" Moxi <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bfishntackle.com/4inch_moxi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bfishntackle.com/4inch_moxi.html</a> Probably not the colors you're looking for, though.
I swear I thought I saw some at TW's Bait and Tackle last weekend in the Outer Banks. <a class="postlink" href="http://twstackle.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://twstackle.com/</a> The phone numbers are at the bottom of the main page.
Very solid week of fishing, no bait 100% jig fishing they way it is supposed to be. Some of the best yellowtail fishing I have been a part of with some leopard grouper mixed in. The yellowtail were 20-30 pound class.