First time catches are the best!

My buds Ian and Dan and I hit a local lake for Lakers with the intent to get some fish for the smoker. Ian brought his daughter Amy, who had never caught a Laker before, mission was to have her catch her first. I met Ian at his house at 6am and then, after loading his gear, we started the trek to the launch.
Dan met us there with his 5yr old son Ryan, boy it's nice to see the youngsters interested in fishing, makes a good day even better.
The day started with jigging in 100-125' of water with Rapala ice minnows, Dan was lucky right off the bat but Ian, Amy and I were not so lucky. After a while of watching the sonar I noticed how the 50-70 foot zone was loaded with fish, a decision was made to switch over to downrigging. GOOD PLAN!!!

Amy and her first Laker, nice fish!













Ian and a beauty, weighed in at 6.6lbs.
















A little one for me.



Not bad for a mornings fish

Lakers,Lakers,Lakers

Gotta love downrigging for Lakers! They are hungry, and plentiful.

My bud Ian, joined me hoping to boat his first Laker, and they didn't disappoint.

Balls down 60ft in 150 feet of water, Mooselook spoons, and WHAMMO!!!

We passed a certain submerged rock point, and on almost every pass we had a fish!


1.4mph seemed the best speed, while going against the wind produced all the fish.

Canada day brought some fun bass action. My brother in law Erik and I did some froggin and spinnerbaits for largies and we did, OK!

We missed a couple of giants and had a break off, might have been a toothy critter.

Of the approx 6 hrs on the water over the long weekend, these were the photo worthy fish!

Freekish winds kept us away from 90% of the Lake, seems the fish had the same idea.

Good times!

Rainbows and sunshine

My bud Ian and I hit a small Rainbow lake in search of some action, we did manage to hook up but the bite was less than we had hoped for.
When they do hit it's pretty exciting and even for smaller fish they fight pretty good. Still driving into a back lake and spending a day on the ice in the sun makes for a pretty enjoyable time.







Ian was able to hook up with a nice 'bow, hopefully our next hunt will be more active.

Ice Pickeral

Evening walleye bites can be exciting, fast and furious, as we found out on a January weekend.
With my buds Jm and Bruce, we hiked out to a grassy edge and settled in for a night bite, we were not let down.

With a lead up of steady  perch action, the walleye started to bite almost on cue, almost as if someone had rung the dinnerbell.


We hooked into about a dozen or more and released about half back to swim again. Jm had an unfortunate thing happen as he left his one rod unattended and heard some commotion, only to turn and see his rod disappear down the hole, quickly.


 I would have liked to have seen that fish.

Awesome time on the ice with some friends and we even were treated to an amazing sunset.