Red Lake After Christmas...A Great Party!!

Bruce continued his holiday fishing trip so he and I took Zach and Dubo up to Red Lake for 2 days. We didn’t expect to catch many crappies and we weren’t disappointed, we caught zero crappies. The walleyes kept up a lot of action with some nice 18” fish, and the perch wouldn’t leave us alone. THE important thing is we didn’t run out of booze. Nobody complained because Zach was talking to every fishhouse he could walk to and he didn’t find 10 crappies in 20 places or so. The resorts still need fishermen to find the crappie schools.

I will also tell fishermen that the ice conditions are terrible, there are many thin ice covered slush holes waiting to swallow up your truck. Pick your routes carefully and don’t get out by yourself or you could be sitting for awhile till help arrives. We need some cold weather and better snow conditions on the lakes the drifts will also bury you to the axels.

Our highlight of the trip was our introduction to high tech fishing by Mike Dubovich….AKA….Dubo. This poor guys carries no less than 100 pounds of electronics with him at all times. I tried to review a few of them in the pics below. Just trust me when I say that he didn’t leave anything at home. We were entertained.

I hope the fishing picks and I’ll keep you posted on what I hear from the fishermen I talk too, Bruce’s work buddy Harry said they did well on Morris point on Lake Of The Woods, but fishing was still slow for this time of the year. A lot of work, and moving was the key to find fish.

The weather looks to be going to be mild so get out and try your luck,

Steelheader

We all took a lesson in fishing from the urban warrior Dubo. He used his laptop, his Aquaview camera, TV, XM radio, 2 or 3 cell phones, his external hard drive, video camera and some equipment that we just couldn't comprehend. He gave us some laughs but I hope he can find time to fish again this winter.

 

Bruce, Zach and I were low tech with only our vexilars.

 

Here we're cooking lunch, soupa.

 

Zach camped out in the back 2 holes and caught alot of fish again, sometime this winter I'm going to make him fish another set of holes. Then we'll see if his luck in the house holds.

 

The perch were plentiful, with the walleye action, the lack of crappies wasn't too dissapointing.

 

Dubo holds up the walleye he just caught and Zach holds hi cup of crown, we have to have priotities here......Nice fish Dubo!!

 

Here Bruce holds up a nice eater walleye, next year!! You guys will be fair game then.

 

We caught some very nice 15"-18" walleyes but here Bruce found a little Wallygator, he almost choked on the minnow. It was a close rescue to save this little guy.

 

Mike Dubovich was too much fun to take fishing, To his left in front of the hole is his AquaView camera, in the backpack behind the hole is about 100 pounds of various electronics. Only the portable stuff, the back of his Blazer was full of the rest of his equipment.

 

Dubo just fires up his laptop as the fishing was in a lull. At one time he had his Aquaview linked to his TV and his video camera and was recording his jig. The hope was to catch a fish biting on camera...NOT!!

 

Here Dubo is looking for his fishing videos on his laptop. We got an intro into the high tech world this weekend.

 

Starting a week of Hard Work!!

I got off midnights this morning and had a hard time walking out to my truck, it rained all night and everything was like a skating rink at 5:30 AM this morning. I poked home at 30 MPH so I could stay on the road...It was really nasty driving. With repairs to my truck costing $900 I didn't need to find an accident that would probably bankrupt me....HEHE.... I woke at 10:30 AM and told Jackie that I was going fishing, if looks could kill....anyway I went and in 2 hours caught a nice mess of fish... Another great meal of crappies.

Sorry no pictures of the fish, I was too lazy and and too busy moving my fish house around trying to keep on the fish. Some times its almost more work than one should have to put up with. The fishermen who read this will appreciate that last statement. Anyway I will enjoy the holiday's with my Family and then on Monday it will be fishing for 5 days and maybe if I'm a good boy I will allow myself to party a little. The fish that we catch will be a bonus....I know that is a very trite statement but I have done well so far and the season of ice fishing......Now all I have to do is to get some of my friends to enjoy the pleasure of fishing through the ice and to enjoy the quiet and friendship of good company. A few beers and a bottle of Jack will help mellow out the most tense of the bunch on the ice.

I hope all of you try to enjoy the solitude or the raucous events of a party on the ice, this is the time of the year when letting loose can be the reason you fish. I don't want to belittle the ice fishing season in anyway, just enjoy the excuse to fish in the way you want. I will have some pics in my next post and you will see some new faces and maybe an old, but I can promise you one thing that the fish caught will be an honest account of the trip. I will tell you now and I think those who read this blog know that I am not too proud to tell you most honest fishermen have a bad day, and I do not....I repeat I do not catch limits everyday. We all hear stories from people who we talk to that they never return without a full catch. I hope you wish these fishermen well with the smile they deserve, because Al, Babe and Roland catch the fish they do because they are told when and where the fish are biting and they don't sell footage of film fishing for hours without a bite. The bottom line is don't deny a bad fishing trip, it happens to all the pros. Enjoy your time on the water and remember that a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work!!

Be honest, be proud and have fun.....

Steelheader

The Fish House Rolls in 05

Well the first outing in “the Fish House” is in the history books and a great hangover was had by all. Ouch…did I say that, I meant a great time was had by all. Zach Dagel, George Sill, Jeff Vitali, and Steelheader made the trip onto Lake Of The Woods and fished Wednesday night and all day on Thursday. The fishing was not fast and furious but we did catch enough fish for some nice meals of saugers and walleyes.

The man of the morning was Z he had the holes in front of the doors and they were the only holes that caught a fish in the morning. He probably caught 8-10 fish wile the rest of us watched and took his verbal abuse, BWT the only time his mouth isn’t moving is when he’s sleeping….then he’s snoring. The pocketful of earplugs I had were a very valuable commodity.

The afternoon was a different story, the rest of us caught fish wile Z watched. He gave up his holes to George hoping that he would catch his first walleye through the ice. When a late afternoon flurry of fish came through George did catch his fish, then another, and then he hooked Mr. Big. George said hey I’m reeling but the line is moving out faster. Well to make a long story short he caught a 26” walleye and when you see the smile on his face in the pictures you know taking Z’s abuse, and a few encounters with the Misses was well worth the trip.

Jeff the pro among us tallied a handful of fish and had to stoop low enough to use gay minnows as he called them, the fish seemed to like rosies ( minnows that are a reddish color).

I did catch 1 fish and yes I took more than a little abuse, but there are those days when those scaley bastidges kick your butt and I know it happens often, you take the good days with the bad. Although there are know real bad fishing days.

Everybody must have had fun because I had to make a beer run at noon. Those of you considering going to the Lake of the Woods the ice is there, so are the snow drifts and the slush is on its way. Sad to say that this may be a long hard year of fishing, the wheeled houses will soon have a hard time getting around.

Till the next time I ramble you through my next fishing trip…catch them if you can….drink them if you have them

Steelheader

We had a comfortable day fishing in the HOUSE with jokes and jabs flying at all. This picture I'll call the "3 wise men". Pictured are Jeff Vitali, George Sill, and Zach Dagel.

Z had the 2 back holes by the door and they were the only holes producing in the morning bite. I'm guessing he caught 7 or 8 fish Thursday morning, he definately had the touch....WTG.

 

Here Zach celebrates his corner on the walleye, sauger catch of the morning. He caught all the fish in the morning, the rest of us had to just watch and take his abuse.

 

George's first walleye caught through the ice.

 

It took George awhile to get the hang of ice fishing but his eyes got really big with this fish.

 

George's smile will tell you what he thinks about catching a 26" walleye. WTG George everybody needs a fish like this.

 

Here Zach is holding Geaoge's big walleye, for some reason Z sneaks in to the pictures of big fish....HMMMMM We may have to slap him next time.

 

Here's the lamprey that was stuck to the belly of George's big walleye. I have seen them in Lake Of The Woods before, this one was about 11 inches long. I guess the walleye was lucky to be caught because this critter would have eventually killed him.

 

LAKE OF THE WOODS...12/11

I took my first flyer fishing tour of the year, it started out by driving up to Red Lake and spending Wednesday night in the fish house. The next morning Z and I drove to Lake Of The Woods and fished out of Adriens resort. We spent 4 hours of fishing in about 18` of water and caught 6 walleyes and 3 saugers. I just made it sound like a ho hum trip but here COMES the exciting part. The lake looks like a battle ground, the winds piled up sheets of ice in every direction before the lake completely froze and drive out the first couple of miles is a real challenge. When we were satisfied that we were fishing in a good spot we unloaded the portable and started to drill holes. After the first hole was drilled the auger stalled and Zach broke the starter rope trying to restart the auger, in a flurry of 4 letter words and other random threats we took the recoil of the auger apart. Much to our amazement we actually fixed it in record time and only 2 or 3 frozen fingers each. The temperature was a whopping 0.

All in all it was a fun trip and we will be going up on this Wednesday for a 3 day trip and will use the wheeled fish house for the first time this year…I HOPE.

Catch them if you can find them,

Steelheader

Zach caught the monster of the day. Here he show a 5"walleye that attacked a jigging spoon and minnow that was only an inch smaller than the fish....or walleye minnow...or midget!!

 

Every once in awhile I'm forced to appear in my blog, here you can see that I do actually catch fish once in awhile. Here are 2 nice walleyes that were caught.

 

Another fisherman moving to another area in hope of better luck.

 

We thought we would have to go out onto the lake on a 4 wheeler, but there was 14" of ice and that is usually enough to support any vehicle.

 

Looking over Zach's shoulder we can see that he's concentrating on his Vexilar flasher.

 

Looking into a portable fish house you can see that it is quite a cozy little affair. You have the heater in the middle and 2 people fishing 4 holes. Zach and I both have Vexilar flashers that can tell us if there are fish in the area.