1st Annual Dakota Prairie Perch Party

[Mike Walerak]

1st Annual Prairie Perch Party

When: Jan 28 at 9:00 or earier!

Where: Lake Whitewood near Lake Preston, SD.

Directions: If you are on going West on Hwy 14 heading towards Lake Preston turn left on 446 Ave. In about 3/4 mile you will hit the lake. I will be off to the left(East) with a black and grey pickup with a black topper. We will be fishing in front of the tall steep bank.

It will be fun to get to know some of you and match the names with the faces. It will be a fun time and with any luck at all we will be having a blast with a few perch.

I plan to bring a frier for a fish fry and a few bags of fish. If anyone can bring a bag of fish to help out that would be great.

I will post more details closer to the date as where exactly to meet. I will hang some blaze orange from my pickup so it will be easy to spot.

Put this on your calander and be sure not to miss it!

Who is planning to participate?

Mike Walerak

[CPL]

I was reading through the January 9th SDGFP weekly newsletter and the first article states that you cannot cook fish on the ice -- so I guess the fish fry will have to happen on shore.

I've excerpted the article:

Have to Leave the Water to Clean or Cook Fish

PIERRE, S.D. – Game, Fish and Parks officials say that cleaning and cooking is no longer allowed in South Dakota…at least regarding fish while a person is on the water or ice or otherwise actively engaged in fishing, such as from the shoreline.

Regional Law Enforcement Specialist Dave Wicks of Watertown explained that new, uniform size limit restrictions make it so that the cleaning of any fish species beyond “gut and gill” or cooking of any fish species is no longer allowed while a person is on any of South Dakota waters.

“The new 2006 fishing rules have placed a statewide size limit on all walleye, sauger, walleye/sauger hybrids, muskie and tiger muskie, which means an angler can no longer filet or cook any fish while on the water or ice of any South Dakota lake, stream or river,” Wicks said. “In past years, only certain lakes had size limits on them, and on those waters, cleaned fish were not allowed in an angler’s possession. Now, because of the way the newly established walleye and muskie size limit rules are written, all waters must be enforced under these rules.” He added that this rule has to apply to all fish species, because once a fish has been filleted, it is impossible to identify the type of fish.

In the simplest terms, anglers who wish to clean or cook their fish while outdoors must leave the water or ice. And, to be legal to get back on the water or ice, an angler must leave their cleaned fish elsewhere, like in a cooler on shore or at home.

Wicks also reminds anglers that it is illegal to have fish in their possession that were caught from another lake or are from an earlier day’s limit if those fish puts them over their limit for that particular body of water.

“In other words, if an angler is over his or her limit for the lake that he or she is fishing (some lakes have lake specific rules), he or she cannot claim their extra fish came from their limit from the day before or their limit came from another lake that they fished earlier in the day.

“To make this as simple as possible, do not take any cleaned fish onto a South Dakota water,” Wicks said. “People wishing to cook fish outdoors will have to do so on shore, which eliminates doing so in an ice house or on a boat.”

So, if you bring fish for the fry, you should probably leave them in the truck until cooking time!

Sounds like a great time and hope to be able to attend -- right now my freezer is barren of fish so I cannot contribute to the fish fry, but I'll bring along something for others to munch on.

Scott

[Rost]

I'll be there at about 1:00. Sounds like a good time.

[Tyler Holm]

Yes, Mike.. I was going to mention the same thing about cleaning/cooking fish on the ice. It sounds like bringing fish from the freezer might be a risk as well. There is debate whether its legal or not in a sleeper shack here im MN, but I don't know the exact rules. Here is a post than talks a bunch about it.

South Central Forum - MN

Might just want to run to shore to gobble up the goodies. Have a god one.

I'm going to make it over there yet sometime, but will have to miss this event. Sounds like fun thou.

[rundrave]

You can count me in, really looking forward to it!

[jdbigeye]

Sounds like a good time. I will be there to try my luck. If we can't cook fish on the ice, can we still have a few beverages of choice...or is that regulated too??? I will be fishing Shetek that week before, so if anything ever happens down there, I will let you know.

What should a guy bring to this get together as far as equipment/toys???

[Rost]

Mike,

What are the odds of getting Schmitty to sponsor the events later that evening??

[SD_waterfowler]

I'll be up north, Rost...where the $%& have you been?

geese are dyin in pierre...

Andy

[Rost]

I've been hanging around..mostly coyote hunting. Starting to swing over to the ice fishing mode, and really pumped for the open water season.

Are you still shooting geese?

[Mike Walerak]

I guess I should have looked into it more! The fish fry has just turned into a pheasant fry. I will be making pheasant chislic. I hope you can cook pheasants on the ice.

mw

[Mike Walerak]

The area I was planning on meeting is at the the North East side of the lake.

Directions:

If you are on going West on Hwy 14 heading towards Lake Preston turn left on 446 Ave. In about 3/4 mile you will hit the lake. I will be off to the left(East) with a black and grey pickup with a black topper. (If it is chilly, I will be be in a green Otter Lodge fish house.) We will be fishing in front of the tall steep bank.

I am going to gather up all my blaze orange clothing and hang it from my pickup so I am easy to find.

If there are further questions please e-mail me or call me at home (605) 983-3204.

I plan to be on the ice by 7:00 a.m. and will be searching for fish in the area mentioned above.

Hope to see you all there!

[MapSD]

This sounds like a good time. See you Sat.

[berke99]

I am planning on being there, might be worth it just to see the pick-up covered in blaze orange! Hope the perch cooperate!

[rundrave]

I will be there. Question is though, what is this wild weather gonna do to the ice? Will it still be safe for driving on?

At least it wont be a really cold windy day on the ice.

Looking forward to meeting everyone and hopefully catching some fish!

[Mike Walerak]

Great!!! It should be fun to get to know you guys!

Hopefully the fish cooperate. The bite has been pretty sporatic out there but we can handle that

The weather is gonna be nice so that should make the fishing go a little better.

mw

[Mike Walerak]

From what I hear the bite was good today!!

Can't wait to meet some of you!

mw

[boxcar46]

Hey Mike, I figured something on my computer to get logged in. I just need to change a setting when ever I want to get on this site. Anyway, what a great time yesterday. Weather held off for the most part. Did you have anymore luck after I left? It was great meeting all you that showed up. Mike that pheasant chislic was awesome. Here's our home base for next year .

[ifishsd]

Did you guys get any fish?

[rundrave]

we had 7 pearch I think all together, bite was slow but what was caught had some nice size, I personally ended up with a zero for the day, but it was a great time meeting everyone and the pheasant and chili were awesome!

I sent mike pictures I took, and he will be posting them along with the report.

cant wait to do it again

[MapSD]

Great food, company, and time. Special thanks to the cooks, and the Ice Taxi, co-piloted by Zoey.

[Mike Walerak]

What a great day! It was fun to get to know some of users on the site. The only thing that could have made it better was more fish and more people! The fish really only bit for two short periods of time. It's a good thing that the fish that were caught were dandies as all were 11"-13.5"s WOW!!!

Here is MapnSD with one of the first fish of the morning!

By the way thanks for the maps and coffe mugs Mike!!

A group photo!

Left to Right: berke99, BOXCAR, me, rundrave and MapnSD

The results!

rundrave, Rost, BOXCAR, Me

Another thanks to BOXCAR for bringing the chili dogs it really hit the spot.

Hope to meet some more of you at the next one!

mw

[berke99]

I ended up fishing on the south end, I caught 4 perch. All were the jumbo size. I enjoyed meeting you guys there. Keep up all the reports and new ideas!

[Rost]

It was cool to get to meet a few FMers! I wish I could have been there earlier. I am looking forward to doing this again some time. Maybe we could get a few boats rounded up this summer?

[ivegottabite]

Sure wish I could have run down there and fished with you guys. I was down last weekend and now this coming weekend I will be back again. I'll be looking for another get together to try and make.

Anyone have plans next weekend? I wouldn't mind getting out on some dandy jumbos