IGL Report 12/8/07

[munchy71]

Well, Where do I start?!?!? First of all, I'd like to thank Mike for running ramrod on the way up and smoking out all the speed traps for us. Thanks Bandit! We had a long way to go and a short time to get there. LOL!!!

It was GREAT to be out in the ice for the first time this year. The fishing was a little slow, but the fish we DID catch were all quality fish. I started out throwing every palstic I own at the gills & perch on Little Emerson Bay. I had lots of shoppers, but no buyers. I switched to 4 or 5 spikes on a small horizontal jig, and the games began!! I hauled in a 9" gill and a 11" perch back to back as soon as I made the switch. I missed on a few bigger perch and some MONSTER gills, but I had HUGE fish under me all morning!!! I absolutely LOVE Little Emerson Bay. I know I've said it before, but the sight fishing in that bay is absoultely indescribable. If you love to icefish, you owe it to yourself to try it at least once. The one bad thing that happened, I discoverd as I was "suiting up", was that my new Ice Armor fits a little tighter than I like.

The ice on Little E was good clear strong ice with just a little more than a dusting of snow on top of it (2"-3"). Ice was mostly around 4" with some 3" & 5" spots.

Before too long, the group decided it was time to load up & move, so we did exactly that. That's when the next bad thing happened. I won't go into details...if you want more info, you can pry it out of Chad. I think it was due to having TOO MUCH shack in the back of Chad's truck as opposed to TOO MANY shacks, as Chad maintains. But that was for reasons that were out of Chad's control. At any rate, we regrouped and perservered, finally arriving at Anglers Bay. I was very surprised to see that the ice was not nearly as pretty as it was on Little E. Basically there was anywhere from 2" to 4" of decent clear ice with about 4" of dump-slush on top of that and a glaze of another 1" of ice on top of that. YUCK!

I set up on a spot I had fished last year and had a bite as soon as I dropped my jig down. Much to my dismay, as soon as I set the hook the line snapped! To furthre complicate things, within minutes of that happening, I started to hear sleet/ice/snow pitter-patter on the outside of my Rover. From that point on the fish activity slowed considerably and biting fish became virtually non-existent. Stepping outside to feel the temperature drop confirmed my suspicions....a cold front had just moved thru and shut the fish down. From that point on, almost all you could see on the bottom were smal finger-sized perch. Occasionally you'd see a bigger fish cruise through, but they definitely weren't interested in eating...let alone slowing down. I think the smaller prey-fish realized they had a free pass and were down there in droves!!!

Luckily it was about time for the weinie-meister to ring the dinner bell, so I headed to the mess-tent, double time. The dogs were awesome as always, and I definitey want to thank Steve and Kent for their generosity in feeding the crew.

In addition to Steve, it was also great to see mini-Todd (Jake, aka Kareem) out on the ice and excited to be icefishing. These young men are the future of my sport so it's great to see them out there totally loving the wind, freezing cold and crappy ice!!!

After a little more fishing (and maybe a short nap or 2 ), Chad & I decided it was time to hit the road. We'd heard rumors that there was a good bite at a different lake AND we wanted to get out of there before any nasty traveling conditions set in. We didn't end up making it to the other lake, but we did manage to find the bad conditions. I have to thank Chad for being such a trooper and driving on into the snow. I know if I had been driving, I would have white-knuckled it all the way, and we probably never would have driven faster than 35.

So when are we going again guys????

-Munchy

[PerchPounder]

So you were one of those guys. I was the one drilling all of the holes shortly before you left. The fishing only got better as the day went on for us though.