How do you get through the winter?

[mainbutter]

Well it's that time. With musky season officially closed, I don't think I'm going to get out for any more open water fishing until next spring.

For those of you who don't ice fish, what do you do to make up for the time you would have spent fishing if the season permitted it?

Foremost of course I have to mention the holidays. I'm lucky enough to be seeing the family over Christmas during a vacation in Hawaii. I'm completely stoked for that, I know it will be a blast.

I'm also going to spend this winter crafting fishing lures, both hand carved hard lures and hand-poured soft plastics with homemade molds. I'm getting really excited, all my soft plastics needs are on my x-mas wishlist. I've already begun to carve out some prototypes for making my soft plastic molds. This past fall I made a handful of time-intensive jointed crankbaits but put that on hold, and now I'm quite excited to get that project up and running again.

I'm also going to be spending more time pursuing my other passion: hobbyist reptile breeding.

With a move to a new, spacier apartment coming up, and some free time, I'm going to be able to finally get around to building more cages and designing my reptile room. I'm hoping to expand my current crested gecko project from two breeding pairs to four, and making room for potentially 50 or so hatchlings over the next year. In addition I hope to pick up a mate for my coastal carpet python, but she still has a couple years before she is up to breeding size. Finally if I'm able to talk the girlfriend into not being scared around some bigger snakes, I really want to begin a project involving two less common species in the US: olive pythons and southern scrub pythons.

Plus I've started to drag my girlfriend into my hobbies (always a goal, right guys??) so I can spend more time with her AND the hobbies without feeling guilty! She has become enamored with panther chameleons, which have extraordinary colors that you wouldn't believe. They give scarlet macaws a run for their money. We're going to get started building a large planted terrarium with bioactive substrate (no [PoorWordUsage] cleaning) to have a display chameleon with live tropical plants. We're hopefully going to get in contact with an acquaintance who did some stuff with the como conservatory's tropical plants to help us get started.

All in all for a couple of months without fishing, it's going to be an exciting time. How about you guys? I know I can't be the only one who doesn't ice fish.

[catfreak]

I see you have a lot to fill your time up, but I gotta ask. If you're so into fishing open water, why don't you spend any time on the ice?

[porterhouse]

I'm also a muskie nut! Putting the boat in storage tomorrow. In the off season I hit the gym 5 days a week. Work on home improvements( keep the boss happy). Watch muskie dvd's, shows, and do some reading. I always go to Mexico in February, so that's not to far off.

Brian

[solbes]

I LOVE being out on the water. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem the same out on the ice. I try to go out a couple of times each winter and do enjoy it somewhat. Still for whatever reason I don't get near as excited.

I do spend some time in the boat doing updates, electronics, rod organizers, etc. Spend a lot of time with the kids. I take some time playing video games, which I do not do at all when it's warm out. My TV is on more. I try to read more books. I started doing some lures last winter, although I have yet to paint any of them. Maybe this winter!

[Northlander]

Ice fish, snowmobile and catch up on my sleep and cash in on some OT.

[waterbound]

If you guys don't like ice fishing you could always fish the open pools on the Mississippi...

[shizzy]

some people don't Ice fish?

[gunflint]

I study, read maps, do equipment maintenance and modifications, watch fishing videos, and run up my post count on FM.

[Ely Lake Expert]

some people don't Ice fish?

[mainbutter]

I see you have a lot to fill your time up, but I gotta ask. If you're so into fishing open water, why don't you spend any time on the ice?

I'm from texas. I try to enjoy the outdoors in winter but the cold wins way too fast for the patience required for fishing.

[JohnMickish]

Wii fishing games and rented permanent houses up north. That and maintenance on the reels and rebuilding a ton of snells and spinners.

[jeffreyd]

i live for winter, living in Arizona, the first of Dec is the best time of the year here. Going from hell to heaven only to go back to hell in 3 months is tough so we make sure we get to play while it is cool out.

[traveler]

hard liquor mostly....

[Down Deep]

Finish out the home season for the Vikes at the Metodome.

Ice Fish

Watch the Super Bowl to see the Vikes beat the Colts

Ice Fish

Go the the Daytona 500 & do some ocean fishing

Ice Fish

Trip to Las Vegas with my sweet wife

Ice fish

Northwest Sport Show

More Ice fishing

Rainy River walleye fishing

Rainy River sturgeon fishing

Back at it again for with the walleye opener

Ice fishing may be done during the winter months, but with the equipment and clothing we have today ice fishing is no longer a uncomfortably cold sport.

[traveler]

I changed my mind, I'm gonna do what Downdeep does (minus the daytona thing, too noisy for me). Hope your wife doesn't mind, DD!

[meatgrinder]

Ice fishing consumes a lot of my time during the winter. There is just something about sitting out on a bucket on your favorite frozen lake.

[wplatehunter]

Ice fishing. One good thing is that my 4 year old loves ice fishing, so we get out a lot together.

[harvey lee]

Ice fishing, coyote hunting and building a few new rods for the next open wayer season.

[Sniper07]

I actually keep pretty busy in winter as I'm retired so I ice fish at least 4 days a week for hours on end and I also run a couple trap lines with a buddy of mine.

[roughfish29]

i do ice fish, but nowhere near as much as i fish in open water.

during the down time i'll play guitar, look at my pics from open water, watch football.......uh, thats about it

[delmuts]

After the holidays i will start in cleaning all the reels that got used this last year. Next is checking all the rods for any cracked guides or damage to the rod itself. After that i go through my lures, check/sharpen hooks,replace blades or swivles on my blade baits.

[pascooter94]

make more jigs,spinnerbaits,buzzbaits,try to paint some crankbaits,not very good so the ones that dont turn out go to the kids in the hood.

like delmuts said go clean up things before open water.

[jigginjim]

NO MUSKIE FISHING? Until harriet freezes over, get some big minnow, go sit on shore pitch out the big minnies. You maybe surprized what has come out of there this time of year. 48 to 50" Skies, Don't give up so soon. Maybe the boat don't float but you can find muskies if your really into muskies.

[MN Shutterbug]

If I could, I'd hibernate like a bear. I spend too much time on this site, look for online bargains and try and put together photo excursions. I also spend a lot of time researching spring birding hot spots.

[mainbutter]

jigginjim: I wish The season closed a week and a half ago.