Medicine Lake ICE Series Recap...

[Matt Johnson]

Thank to everyone who made it out to Medicine Lake and it was nice to put a face with a lot more names. Deitz and I had a great time cruising the lake talking with everyone. We sure had a great group of people out there on Saturday! I hope everyone stayed safe this weekend with the horrible conditions.

The conditions were less than favorable when I got to lake early in the morning. Very strong winds and 2-3 foots snow drifts made traveling on the lake tough at first and if you didn't have a 4-wheel drive then you had a good chance of getting stuck. Joe Harty sure worked extremely hard out there on Saturday! Not only did Joe take care of everything at the baitshop (along with a little help) but he also had nice plowed roads across a good portion of the lake early in the morning. So, a big thank you to Joe Harty!

Some nice fish were brought in to the weigh-in. A lot of panfish (both crappies and sunfish) and some really nice pike.

Chris Balloy was our Medicine Lake Worlds Greatest Ice Angler and Big Fish winner!

Chris Balloy

Chris caught 10.6 lbs of fish with a very nice 8.7 lb pike!

Congratulations Chris!!

Runner up was Joe Moeller with a nice pike some gills and crappies. 7.2lbs. Very nice bag of fish!

Joe Moeller

To round out the top 5 we have:

3rd- Tim Patterson with a 6.5lb pike

4th- Derek Checco with another nice pike going 5.4lbs and some 'gills

5th- Brad Klimek with another nice 4.9lb pike.

Here are a few more shots from the Medicine event...

Darin Ingalls, our camera guy, getting in on the crappie action

A big thanks to Darin for all the hard work he did this weekend gathering footage and making it an enjoyable event for everyone. Thanks Darin!

Deitz Dittrich hook-setting into a crappie

Deitz spent the day interviewing contestants as well as announcing at the weigh-in. Good job Deitz!

Kylersk with nice pike

wastewaterguru setting into another nice bluegill

Some weigh-in pictures...

Another big thank you to Joel from JR's Tackle for making the event and providing a lot of sponsor prizes for the contestants and kids... www.jrstackle.com

And last but not least, the day would have never happened if it wasn't for all the hard work by the Pro Staff, many of which I might add volunteed to help on Saturday. Tom Herman, Dennis Steele and Paul Waldowski sure worked extremely hard to make sure everything ran smoothly and they did a lot of planning and organization to make sure the contestants had an enjoyable experience.

Ray Esboldt, Pete Riola, Steve Renneberg, Dave, Chris Hanson and Bob Horn were there bright and early directing people to registration and taking care of a lot of the "grunt" work making sure things got taken care of.

Brian Rogers spent a good part of the day guiding people across the lake putting them on fish.

Deitz Dittrich, Darin Ingalls and Rick put a lot of miles on driving around the lake talking with contestants and helping out in any way they could. Should be an excellent video when it comes out!

I'm sure there are a lot of things I've missed and I appologize in advance. Saturday was a long day thats for sure!

The next ICE Series event is this upcoming Saturday up on Burntside Lake, Ely, Mn.

Following Burntside will be Lake Minnetonka on February 5.

I hope to see soem of you there!!

Please be sure to check out the fine sponsors:

Marcum Technologies

Otter Outdoors

Custom Jigs and Spins

Nils Master

Scenic Tackle

Todays Tackle

Bad Dog Lures

Lakemaster Maps

Thorne Brothers

Beaver Dam Tip ups

Stone Legacy

Lazy Jigger

Air Plugs

Islander Lures

Road King

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[PERCHJR]

Hey Matt, My buddies and I had a great time catching all the crappies a guy could catch!!! To bad we had to leave right away after the weigh-in, would have liked to meet you and other F'mers, maybe next year we can stay later and fish a little longer!! You guys did a wonderful job getting everything going, considering the weather, we will be there next year for sure!!

GOOD LUCK AND GOOD FISHING!!!

[Dennis Steele]

With the conditions we wer facing friday night I just want to thank all who came out. Its our family members at IceLeaders and FishingMinneosta that made this a great event.

Seeing folks have a great time is what its all about for me and I got to see a lot of smiles saturday!

I would also like to thank our sponsors for all the prizes that they donated. Winning some great prizes puts smiles on everyones faces and we couldn't have done it without them.

Scenic Tackle

Marcum Technologies

Otter Outdoors

Custom Jigs and Spins

Todays Tackle

Nils Master

Stone Legacy

Bad Dog Lures

Lakemaster Maps

Thorne Brothers

Beaver Dam Tip ups

Lazy Jigger

Air Plugs

JR's Tackle

Islander Lures

Fish Fever

Road King

[Paul Waldowski]

Thanks Dennis for listing our Sponsors again. I can't say enough thanks to these guys. They are the ones that make these events possible and are very much appreciated by all of us here at FM.

Thanks Guys! Each and everyone of you are greatly appreciated.

[ZapBranigan]

My son and I fought the bad weather to make it out to this event. Thanks to all your sponsers and your crew. despite the tough conditions you guys ran a great event. We didn't find fish until the last hour. We had no idea where to start we got one or two panfish at each spot. By 12:30 we hit a spot where we filled out on panfish really quickly. Great challenge and great fun. I was surprised at the turnout due to weather. Wonderful group of people out there. We are both looking forward to Minnetonka. I have many good spots on those bays. Hope to see a big turnout for this one. Thanks again for all your work.