in need of some small talk in this forum

[drakerebel]

if i had a good spearing story i'd share but does anyone have a good tale to tell? i'm in the mood for a good one.

[fishuhalik]

i don't have a real good story but i'll never forget my 1st time out. went with my cousin to a small lake north of grand rapids. i was about 10. he had just found the little 150 acre lake and set it in about 12ft on a steep break on the edge of a beautiful cabbage flat. clear lake, almost no pressure, full of tullies and low population of pike. perfect condititions for a monster. his house was set up so we were facing each other. he was watching shallow and i watched deep. we sat all day and saw some sunnies, crappies, and a couple bass. weren't seeing any slimers until bottom started disappearing and we had about 15 mins of sight. all of a sudden a huge shadow slithered in from the depths. he couldnt see it quite yet. it got right to the edge of the hole so he could see its nose and it stopped. it just sat there, staring at the live decoy struggling to get away. it sat there for what seemed like an hour and finally started moving forward. when it's head was all the way in the hole Cam let fly & all heck broke loose. a few seconds later we had a fish worth waiting all day for! 42" and 24lbs (if memory serves me right) of slime & teeth. that was the fattest pike i had ever & probably will ever see. it's sitting in his living room above the fireplace now. and i was officially hooked. i don't spear any more but i love sight fishing. haven't seen anything close to that fish but i still love it!

[MJ1657]

This could turn into an interesting thread if everyone threw out a few stories. Wouldn't have to be just big fish stories just things that have happened to you.

I was spearing last year and I had a mid twenty inch pike come into my hole hard twice and hit my 12" sucker, third time it finally got it.

Went to the bait store and got another decoy. About 10 minutes later a pike came in hard and hit my decoy and left, came back a second time and I got it. Friends that were with me said look at its belly moving. The tail from the first decoy it got was still sticking out of its mouth.

[Gordie]

On the 2nd GTG on Big lake I was useing a friends perm and went to jig the decoy and the line came untied and the decoy made a grat big circle into deeper water just far enough away that I couldnt get it so I tied on my favorite decoy that I had for years and years and on the thrid jig it also came untied and made the BIG circle and laded just past the first decoy.

My buddy went out a couple days late with a magnet and a ice auger drilled a few holes and was able to retrive his decoy but couldnt find mine. I have yet to find one that even comes close to what that one was..

That GTG was a great time met alot of guys and seen a couple of guys that speared ther efirst pike ever

[MJ1657]

A little buddy of mine had a similar line untying thing happen with my back up spear last year. Never did find it.

[bassNspear]

i think we shuld have dietz tell a few stories

[fishuhalik]

who's had a muskrat/otter pop in their hole? at'll wake ya up in da mornin boy!

[GoneFish'n71]

I've had musk rats come up. Yes it wakes you up when you are staring at the bottom, and you get a sneak attack from right under the ice. I had one onetime came right in the house and huddled by the heater (until i gave him a little poke). I think he was scared because of the BIG northerns that were chasing him. Anyways he looked scared.

[BOUNCED]

who's had a muskrat/otter pop in their hole? at'll wake ya up in da mornin boy!

I popped into my buddy's house one afternoon for a beverage and was in the back of his house straddling the corner of the hole when one popped up in the corner right between my legs. He saw it coming but being the nice guy that he is he didn't bother to say anything. Next thing I know I have a swamp rat 3" from the one area I don't want a biting rodent.

Good thing is there are just as surprised to see you so they leave in a hurry.

[ac777]

Last year my wife and i were out on a small local lake. Just had gotten everything set up with my new but small permanent. The water was very cloudy due to all the run off that fall and lots of rain. We hadnt been seeing much except for a giant one that came and went to fast for me to even move my spear. Hours more went by with out seeing much, but every now and then i would joke that there was one down there to keep her on her toes. Sure enough she decides to try and take a nap. I am watching the hole, and here comes the monster. I say theres a big one down there, well sure enough she doesn't believe the boy who cryed wolf, that is until I threw the spear and hoisted a 40 incher out of the hole. That was my biggest, and I got it mounted. It looks pretty sweet in my office. Was a great day on the water.

[Gordie]

I have had one take a swim around the hole and crawl on to the floor and realize he shouldnt be there the scrurry off

[drakerebel]

has anyone ever had a critter make home of your house when you left the hole lid open?

great stories, keep them coming.

[bowhunt]

Well being that I just started spearing last year, I don't have many stories yet but will share the best one I have. I took a trip up to north central minnesota, and went out on a little lake that I used to fish in high school. Got out there and started to punch holes trying to find a spot to set up and the deepest spot I could find was 5 foot deep. I think the lake gets a little deeper on the other side but I wasn't going to pull all of my gear that far. So I cut my hole and got set up. that's when I realized there was 2 feet of weeds and a foot of ice, so I ended up with 2 feet of water to spear in. I figure I already did the work, so I was going to sit there and see what happens. Put my sucker down and was fumbling around getting the wood decoy ready to put down. Look down the hole and a northern grabs the sucker and takes off. Pulled the decoy back in the hole and he came back and did it again. On the third pass he slowed down enough for me to spear him. With in an hour I had my limit, and was packing up. I have never seen them that hungry before, every northern shot in grabed the sucker and took off. Speared the last one by pulling him back into the hole with the sucker in his mouth.

bowhunt

[TylerS]

It's been a long time since I speared. I'm 27 now, so I'd say at least a couple decades.

My grandfather used to take me out in his little permanent on Otter Tale Lake (way before the slot limit). In fact, back then, the only time I got out on ice outside of a hockey rink was with grandpa.

It was an olive green particle board house, with a worn, faded sign on the front a friend routered for him with his name in big, black letters. Grandpa had built the shack himself, scrounging wood and supplies from junk heaps and the pile of unused boards and trim in the corner of his steel shed. There was black and red shag carpet on the floor, too, leftovers from a recent basement renovation.

Stiff, pink Styrofoam insulation hung between the studs, which he painted black. It was beyond pitch dark in there. Even the faint flickering of flame from his propane heater seemed swallowed up by the inky darkness. I remember being blinded every time the creaky door opened. It seemed to take forever for my eyes to adjust to the ungodly bright whiteness of a Minnesota winter.

I don't remember a lot from these early trips. Much of the information I know now has been gleaned from conversations with grandpa since then. For instance, the house was always set up straight out from his cabin. When I was younger (back before I had a good sense of spacial and temporal differentiation) it felt like the house was miles out on the lake, and took hours to get to. In fact, it was only a few hundred yards, if that, and took mere minutes to find as we bounced across the ruts and drifts out from the Pelican Bay landing.

When I was older, I found out grandpa almost died in that house. He' gone out for an evening in a snow storm to fish by himself on Star Lake. A good friend found him hours later, stripped to his skivvies and freezing in the middle of the ice. My incoherent grandfather was raced to the nearest hospital. When he'd come to, the doctors informed him that he was minutes from dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. Somehow, in the dazed confusion induced by the poison gas, grandpa had lurched out of the house, stripped off his clothes, and collapsed to the ice. It wasn't long after when his friend found him there.

I'm by no means a very religious person, but I can't help but know God was watching out for him that day.

What I do recall is the surreal quality that giant spearing hole possessed. It didn't take long for an overworked boy's imagination to run wild while he stared into the green-hued stillness. Grandpa would sit there, his back to the heater, while I was perched to his left in the corner, a frayed rope tied tight around my waist (grandmother's orders). A large sucker minnow danced feebly against it's harness as grandfather slowly worked a hand-carved red and white decoy my great grandpa whittled from scrap wood. He'd made dozens of them at one point, but some lowlife scumbag tipped over grandpa's shack and stole everything inside, including those priceless family heirlooms. The only one left was the one that had someone managed to get forgotten back at home.

We didn't get a lot of action in those days. If a school of perch somehow made it into view, grandfather would haul up the lines and let me fish for a bit. This happened enough to stave boredom for myself, even though I've been told I was remarkably patient for a four-year-old.

Once, my uncle joined us on the ice. He sat there next to me while grandpa visited with some neighbors. Suddenly, a huge walleye materialized from the side of the hole, lazily hugging the lake floor as it moseyed to some unknown destination. It did not take long for it to clear the field of view, but the bellowing yell of "HUGE WALLEYE" from uncle sent my grandfather running back to the shack. We worked jigs for hours trying to get that behemoth back to the hole, but it never came. "Did you see how big that was?" Uncle would ask. Each time he'd explain the size, his voice would raise an octave. "That's the biggest eye I've ever seen." I remember thinking it had to have been 20 pounds, but it could have just as easily been five. Time and spearing holes have a way of distorting the truth.

I did get the pleasure of witnessing a pike get speared. Once. It was the only northern I'd ever seen during the countless hours I sat staring down that hole with grandpa.

I still don't really know what happened. I do know that I never actually saw the fish come into the decoy. I hadn't been distracted, because I can recall staring at a strange lump on the head of the sucker and wondering if it was some sort of fish wart. I was on the verge of asking grandpa about it, when a huge splash covered the walls in frigid water. Miraculously, he'd thrown the spear, and I sat in shocked silence as the scene played out. Grandpa wrestled with the black handle of the heavy spear for a while before hoisting the fish out of the lake. My eyes nearly popped out of their head when the gaping, sharp-toothed mouth emerged from the glowing waters.

Grandpa said it wasn't a good throw (he'd got it right in the middle of the fish's back) but I didn't care. He scraped the northern off the spear tines with his boot, and I watched it as it made a few feeble flops before expiring on the cold ice outside. I'm sure my over exuberance just about sent my grandpa to the loony bin, but every time I think about his face, all I see is a deeply creased smile.

Grandpa still has that ice house, and I've been mighty tempted to get him out one more time to relive the good old days. We took it out a couple years ago to a lake a few miles from his house, but getting it on and off the lake was a chore for my aging grandpa, and the ordeal seemed too much for him. Last year, because of the poor conditions, he didn't get out once.

I'm bound and determined to take him out again this year. Even if I have to sit there for a week without lifting a single spear, I'd do anything to see him stick a pike one more time.

Maybe that's exactly what I'll do. So far, winter seems to be keeping that awful snow at bay, so I just may be able to convince the old man for one more foray out onto the hardwater.

I sure hope so.

[Gordie]

Good Luck Tyler I hope Grandpa sticks ONE more pike like the Good Ole Days

BTW its not hard to tell yor a writter Great read

[tca12]

A few years ago I'm out on the ice with a brother-in-laws's Mankato style house (canvas with the metal poles on the outside) and packing up. I take down the poles and put the central "spider" where the four poles go in on top of the now collapsed house. Grabbing one end of the house I give a good tug to pull the house free from the snow and ice and away from the spearhole. Much like the dishes on a tablecloth, the house jerks right off and I watch the "spider" remain in place suspended in the air briefly before dropping into the water and to the bottom of the lake. Oh great! Mistakenly thinking that the poles and "spider" are made of aluminum I hurl my spear several times down the hole trying to spear the lost piece. Three bent tines later I look at the poles and realize that they are made of steel. Drive to Menard's, purchase a large magnet and return the next day. Drop magnet on rope down the hole and retrieve missing piece. Fold up house, return to brother-in-law, purchase own house and never go spearing again without the magnet.

[bowhunt]

I will throw another quick story out there to keep this going. My first day spearing ever, which was last year. I got set up which I considered a success by itself, and gave my decoy a couple jigs. The knot in my decoy line came untied and my decoy sailed to the bottom. Not a good start to my new spearing hobby. It was the only decoy I had other then the live sucker in the hole, luckily it landed right on the edge of the hole. I picked up my pan fish rod, and figured I would at least try to hook it. Dropped the tiny bluegill jig down, and bounced it on top of the decoy a few times. Couldn't really tell where the jig was, because the decoy was half buried in the weeds. Started too real up and felt some tension so a very carefully pulled the rod up and sure enough I had hooked it on the first try. I couldn't believe it, the hook went through one of the tiny holes to tie the decoy line on too. So I tied a better knot and went back to spearing. Ended up getting two pike that first day.

bowhunt

[Gordie]

This is the earliest recolection of spearing I have:

A hundred years ago or at least 40 I remember going out to a lake in Scott county Minnesota with my father . He told me when we left the house that We were going fishing but I didn't see any jiggle sticks in the back of the old olive green Chevy truck.

Our 7 mile journey from home to the green shack on Fish lake didn't take that long what took so much time was waiting for Grandpa to show up at the landing with the bait/decoys.

I don't remember dad useing a fake decoy ever just really, really big creek chubs or suckers and when grandpa brought the bait it was Creek chubs that he had caught in the sand creek ,but that's a whole other story .

We had to walk several hundreds yards to the shack and when dad opened the door you could smell the remnants of smoke .. see dads house was black inside and it wasn't paint it was charcoaled from smoke and burnt wood. He lifted the plywood off the hole and a new world is what I was exposed to.. he fired up the old metal box wood stove and it didn't take long to get the chill out of there.

I watched as dad put the massive 12 inch creek chub down the hole and as the fog cleared as the shack heated up you could see the chub plain as day. I was so amazed at this aquarium under the ice I dint even pay attention to the fact that dad had stepped out to punch a few holes for grandpa and his Jig sticks for pike see grandpa didn't spear he just angled.

When dad came back into the shack he startled me and said don't move hand me that spear seems that when he opened the door the big green toothy fish came in and grabbed the decoy chub I watched in amazement as dad pulled the fish fish back into the hole then spearing it just as the pike let go of the chub.

I think from the minute I got in the truck that day and the door was opened to the world under the ice I was addicted to the sport of spearing Northern pike . I hope I never lose the feeling of watching that decoy drop into the water for the first time.

Its time to fire up the stove and spear some pike

Good Luck this season fellow spearers

[TylerS]

Good stories! Has me fired up to give this spearing thing another shot. I hear Devils Lake can be a fun spot ... and they're opening all lakes in North Dakota (except for a handful stocked with muskies) to spearing this year. Lots of opportunities!

[Jameson]

Putting a friend's spear shack out on the ice. We got 911 called on us. The copper comes out on the ice to talk to us, "Guys I got a call from a lady saying there are two kids out on the ice. Here I thought I was going to get the chance to tell a couple of kids that they were being stupid. But you guys look old enough to already know that."

[Gordie]

Putting a friend's spear shack out on the ice. We got 911 called on us. The copper comes out on the ice to talk to us, "Guys I got a call from a lady saying there are two kids out on the ice. Here I thought I was going to get the chance to tell a couple of kids that they were being stupid. But you guys look old enough to already know that."

Thats a great story

[fishuhalik]

so...what were you doing that was stupid?

[MJ1657]

Last year a few of us from the board were spearing on a Sunday afternoon. This is a spot we frequent and there were alot of cat-tails and branches marking old spear holes.

A couple of old guys that were "lake hopping" on their way back to Duluth stopped by and could'nt figure out why we were spearing in a cat-tail bog.

It appeared their lake hopping contained plenty of bar hopping.

[Archerysniper]

Yep that was hilarious. So far it's it's tree tops were spearing in this year I didn't have the nerve to walk and get cattails yet since it was open most of the winter last year.