What is the strangest thing you've caught while ice fishing?

[Lunker]

Just wondering what the strangest things people have caught while out poppin holes in the ice.

Here's mine:
Last year, lake Nokomis in MPLS, fishing for walters with a crappie minnow and a jig. I felt a tug, set the hook, and proceeded to pull in a large cray fish. I believe this was in december or january, so I was very surprised!
Or:
Mille lacs about 6 years ago, fishing in a shack in 20ft of water we could see the perch on the bottom. While jigging this black thing moves in and grabs my hook, and I reel up something that resembles a bullhead with little feathery things around its head with no spikes. Water dog or something? Still don't know about that one.

[BradB]

A few years ago before I had my own sleeper house on Mille Lacs I rented one from Brandt's on the south side. I was jigging away with a Nils Master Shad after dark and something whacked it. I had the drag set low and it was pulling drag, but when I got it to the hole I pulled up a 35 mm camera in its case. It didn't look so bad off so I put it in a vacuum chamber to dry, but to no avail.

It might have been a sculpin you caught: www.gen.umn.edu/research/fish/fishes/mottled_sculpin.html

[united jigsticker]

Brad:

It took you 8 minutes to write your article AND identify and provide a link for the "mystery fish"???

Impressive!!!

Looks like what we used to call "scum suckers" for the household aquarium.

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Good fishing,
UJ
[email protected]

[Lunker]

Yea, that looks like it, although it was darker. What was it doing in mille lacs?

[weekendjunkie]

got a crayfish story for ya.... was out on cutfoot last winter. had my aqua vu down watching my jigging technique seeing what it took to scare fish away then from out of nowhere this HUGE claw come into view and slowly closes. it could not have been 1" from the lens it looked like something from a bad b movie on the screen... darn thing was photogenic too stayed on the screen for a good hour. was fun to watch tho.

[Guest]

Strangest thing I have caught was a muskrat.

Lunker- Was that an eelpout you caught on Mille lacs?
http://www.ci.barnum.mn.us/html/eelpout.html

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Mille Lacs Guide Service
651-271-5459
www.millelacsguideservice.com

[This message has been edited by Derek Johnston (edited 12-02-2003).]

[united jigsticker]

Derek:

Suzy? Or Sam?

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Good fishing,
UJ
[email protected]

[LaVoi]

Stangest- probably a salamander. At least that is what I think it was.

[Fish On! Guide Service]

I managed to catch an old hammer with the handle still attached in open water.

[storm_rider_1]

I dropped my lantern down the hole last year, after an hour of jigging in the dark I hooked it. Dried it out, new mantels and it worked fine.

[can it be luck?]

I also caught a lot of "hammer handles". I lost a jig pole to a fish, it flew right down the hole. I had a sucker on for bait and left the pole about 10' from the hole. I was late in catching it as it slid across the ice. About 15 minutes later a tip-up tripped. It was a good 50 yards from the fore mentioned hole. As I walked to the hole, the shaft of the tip-up was spinning like crazy! I set the hook when the fish started it's second run...but missed him. I brought up my line and noticed another line on my hook. I pulled in the line and began to feel weight. As my friend was standing next to me, I pulled in HIS rod! He looked at his hole and sure enough his pole was gone! I started reeling in his line and felt a heavy fish on the line, it felt sort of different though. I ended up pulling my pole through the hole, and attached to that was about a 35" northern! That was a craaazy day! Other weird stuff happened too, but that's a whole different thread. My friend did have to go to the hospital and get a bunch of stiches that day however. And I ended up catching a different pole also.

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http://groups.msn.com/canitbeluck

[LuckyFish]

Ha Ha storm_rider you had me going for a minute I thought you where going to say it was still lit.

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Good Luck & Good Fishing. Lucky

[LuckyFish]

I know this kind of dates me, but here goes.
About 20 years ago a couple of buddies and I decided to pull an all weekend trip to Millacs. It was windy so we set up our EZ Set portables behind the truck out of the wind. so we had all three houses tight up against each other. Well about 2:00 am I was awakened to the sound of my drag squeeling. After fighting the fish for a couple of minutes I heard my freinds drag being pulled too. I figured we hit the motherlode. I fought valiently but to no avail my buddy won when he pulled my jig and minnow up through his hole.

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Good Luck & Good Fishing. Lucky

[fishin9911]

Didn't actually catch it but a muskrat came up through the hole on Isles. Caused quite a mess in the house before it went back down. It was the first time my dad had ever gone ice-fishing with me and he loves to tell the story whenever he can.

[Guest]

I had a skrat in the hut too, a couple of times I guess?

One time I thought I had dropped my glove so I quickly reached down to retrieve it where I thought it had landed next to the hole. But my glove/skrat had a different plan and ran across the hut to the other hole and dove for it. It Really freaked me out at the time Eh! WHAT-da-#%^l ?

My first pout was a real treat too....ya-bet-ch-ya.

I was on Otter Tail Lake and I thought I had a hog-eye on about 2 hours after dark. I reached down to grab it and it wrapped around my arm like a snake......scared the #%#$%^ out of me so I shook it free and it flew across the ice. The guy with me laughed tell tears were rolling down his face. He said you would have thought your arm was on fire by the way you were waving that pout around Ed.

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Ed "Backwater Eddy" Carlson

Backwater Guiding
"ED on the RED"
[email protected]
><,sUMo,>

[toenail]

I caught a ball cap on Kapetogama,
that said,"Virginia Alcohol Rehab
Center". No talk either, its true!!
TonyS

[pikemania]

While fishing for Walleyes at Lake of the Woods I was in a 8 man ice fishing house. All of the sudden I had a bite and then the drag started screaming and I new I had something big. after about 5 minutes of fighting the guy across the house from me had a bite and he said I have a big fish on also after another 10 minutes of fighting the fish another guy in the house says he has a monster fish on also.(You start to see the pattern)I had hooked a sturgeon and it finally went around the entire house and hooked up every line. After about 30 minutes of everybody fighting the fish we decided that everyone cut there lines execept mine. We finally got the monster up to the hole and there was no way this sturgeon was going to fit through a 10 inch hole. We could see this big ball of fishing line and lures about a foot up from the mouth so one of the guys reached down below the ball of mess and cut the line and let the big shovelnose go. That was some excitment but fishing was terrible after that not a single bite the rest of the day.

[Fish Toys]

Lots of odd things plus a few good eyes I thought were snags. Old bed spring which I still don't know why it was in the lake,spo's somebody dumped it on the ice instead of disposing of it properly and sank with the spring thaw & must have been there awhile because all it was the frame and springs.. Spincast fishing reel. Short old steel fishing rod with a bait casting reel on it. Plastic flowerpot and of course the muskrats to wake a guy up LOL. All these were caught on Union Lake here in Polk county on a short snelled lindy rig

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http://www.icesaws.com/

[icehousebob]

Some friends were in a Mille Lacs shack last winter, and Rudy had his Aqua Vue camera down one hole. He yelled for the guys to look at the big Muskie that came by. They watched as it turned around and came right up to the camera. Then it opened its mouth and grabbed the camera. Rudy fought that Musky for several minutes to get his camera back. Everyone thought it was hilarious,,,, except Rudy.

[Surface Tension]

I used to put out a spear shack on a lake I live on. I'd have to clean out all the vegetation the Mrats packed in there so it wasn't a surprise to me when the mrats would pop in. However it's a little different when your black lab is sitting next to you and mrat comes to visit. Lets just say 2 company 3's a crowd.

Another day in the spear shack brought a a bigger surprise. I use a sucker on a harness thats attached to a old level wind reel mounted on the wall. Anyway I see this big streak fly past the hole and just grazed the sucker. I thought holly crap what was that.....? Well it came back and this time I got a close look at an Otter. We had a tug-of-war going for a while and I had him splashing in the hole then decided It be best to let him win.

[Pagz]

I was on Mille Lacs about 20 years ago with my friend and his father,when his father thought he had hooked "The Big One".We got it up to the boat and it was aobut a 32" northern with something hanging from its mouth.It ended up having an old steel-clip type stringer with two smaller walleyes still attached(but not alive)Three fish at one time,not bad we thought.

[Scoot]

I've got two odd ones:
1) Mud puppies! Yuck!!! I catch 'em on Big Cormorant when my jig gets too close to the bottom. I hate those buggers- worse than pout I think.
2) A condom. I caught a condom last year on the Red River. Guess someone was fishing and got lucky.
Scoot

[CornPirateKiller]

Was fishing crappies on Lake Zumbro (near Rochester) and having some luck when I hooked a heavy fish. I figured maybe a northern or bass had sneaked in and grabbed my minnow. After a good fight, I finally iced a catfish, about a 4 pounder. Laughed about that and dropped the line back in and nabbed another about 3 pounds. I'd never heard of getting cats through the ice before. Since they were hitting, I dropped my bait to the bottom hoping to get more. After a wait, my bobber began to slowly, very slowly sink. I waited until I could stand it no longer and set the hook. It felt like I was pulling in a rock. Turned out to be a clam that had actually taken in my hook. Strange day!

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Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

[Gissert]

Surface Tension -

Otter in a dark house! LOL!

I have had beaver cruise right under the ice several times while watching the Norwegian Television. That will really wake a guy up....

[Sturgeon46]

Mudpuppies - - lots of them, on the river.

Mudpuppies are 8-12" salamanders with legs and external gills. Predatory little buggers too.