tjsa

Well done Cliff and Carole, PB's are always great.

Finally got back out ice fishing after about a month. Tried a completely different area than the masses, and other than the ride out to where we fished, we did not see another angler anywhere. Started a bit slow for the first hour, but picked up for a bit. The fish were biting really softly, missed many jigging. I landed the first one on the set line, but it was under the slot(13" minimum size on this lake) so back it went. Then my bud with the Vexilar got one about 16". Other bud gets one 8" , but shortly after gets one about 21". Had to keep that one, hook was in the gills. I followed up with a 7" fish After 2 hrs., we had 2 or 3 fish kept, and quite a few either lost or missed hooksets. Checked my set line and no minnow. While rebaiting that line, along comes our friendly neighbourhood Conservation Officers. We know almost all of them, and they recognized us. Who's lines are whose, license check, what have you caught, where have you seen other anglers, and they were off to see if they could find anyone doing anything "hinky". Then the fishing really slowed down. Thought of moving, but my bud with the Vexilar was seeing fish a lot. Just none of them were really active. He did manage to get 3 keepers even with the light bite. We were jigging swimbait plastics, lead head tipped with minnows, buckshot rattle jigs, micro Chubby Darters, etc. but the fish were just barely mouthing our presentations so we missed a few more, and lost a few more minnows. When I was using the hole with the Vexilar, I could tease the fish up 3-4 feet, but they would just not commit and either go back down or disappear out of the cone angle. Along comes 2 more Conservation Officers, chat with them for a bit. One of my buds and I know these 2 guys very well, as they have checked us multiple times when out hunting. We hunt in their patrol areas. Off they go to meet up with their counterparts, and about 20 min. later, the fish suddenly turned on around 1:30 pm. It was like flipping a light switch. I had not had a keeper fish until this time, and it was now 2.5 hrs. after we first started fishing. And everything we put down got hits. I finally caught up to my buds with 3 keeper fish, my one bud got his last keeper seconds later, other bud finishes his limit, and it took me about 20 min. to complete my walleye limit, with a nice chunky 11" perch in the mix. We stayed a bit longer strictly jigging, and landed 3 or 4 more, then called it a day at 3:30 pm. Not bad for starting the day with lines down at 10:30 am. Hardly took any pictures, but here is what I did take pics of. My keepers for the day, 2 13.5" fish, 2 15.5" fish, and one 11" perch. One nice fish my bud caught, I wanted to take a better pic of it, but once unhooked back down the hole it went. Probably around 20": Didn't get a pic of my other buds fish for some reason, so I will finish off with a couple of pics I took after I finished my limit. My bud fishing the "hot hole" my other buds 95 Yamaha Enticer ET410TR is in the background, along with the Nordic sleigh he bought from Canadian Tire: Bud using Vexilar's snowmobile, 2003 340 Polaris, Nordic sleigh, and his fish are in the clear bag at the bottom left on the ice: It was a gorgeous day out there yesterday, forecast was for partly cloudy, -21 overnight, high of -4, wind east at 10 kmh. It turned out to be -13 overnight, and was sunny all day. Sunglasses went on soon as we took our helmets of. High temp was probably right, wind was not an issue, it really did not get to what was forecasted. It was a rough ride out to our fishing spot, only an inch of snow on the lake. Lots of humps and ruts from snowmobiles going through slushy areas earlier in the winter, but was a smoother ride back to where we parked in the late afternoon after it warmed up the ice surface. The 1 inch of snow we got a day ago was good for the snowmobiles. Most people were using quads and snowmobiles, but saw some trucks driving back to where we parked our vehicle. Still 30" of ice on this part of the lake(thicker on the shallower east end), so we will be fishing for another 3 weeks at least up here in the Great White North. Ran into 2 of the CO's again on the drive out, and apparently where we were fishing was better than the east end of the lake with regards to numbers of fish hooked, with a couple exceptions. Two more weekends of walleye before closing, but then we go after lakers out of our district to compensate, or walk into stocked speck lakes until we start steelhead fishing. Sorry, no increase of inches for Team 3 Slowpoke.

I believe they change up half of their fleet of boats and motors every year. That boat in the background of the pic of 2 of their boats is one of the ones I believe they send daily to Kenora on a grocery run, sometimes twice a day. Saw it flying up the lake every day, and the day we stopped in for lunch, it did not have any fishing tackle or accessories on it. Just a sonar, vhf, gps, 2 life jackets, and one extra passenger seat. I think it is a 22 ft. all steel boat, the floor and some of the bulkheads were diamond plate. We parked our 19 ft. Bayliner right opposite it at the dock, and it was obviously longer, and almost twice the beam. Hang on if you get to ride in that thing.

Not a problem in my opinion. Have had to do it a few times. As Beans said, the guts stay frozen a bit longer than it takes to entirely thaw out the fish. The belly area will thaw out a bit quicker than the meat of the fish, but the guts will stay frozen long enough for you to open them up and remove the entrails.

Being as I am a day tripper, and usually fishing out of canoes or a 12 ft. boat, I find a nice 24" section of a broken hockey stick, or same length piece of 3/4" EMT does the job perfectly. Couple of hard whacks, put fish in a bag, and put them on ice in the cooler. I do not use stringers, as we quite often have to portage or paddle a bit, and we would have to lift the fish out and put them into the boat or carry them in the cooler anyways. Also, surface temps compared to what depth the fish came out of can be quite different, so we just kill them and put them on ice. I have snapped the necks of small creek brook trout and rainbows allowing them to bleed out, but that was in my youth, and I do not participate in that activity any more. For salmon on Superior, we kill them immediately, and clean them in a bucket right in the boat than put them on ice. Salmon break down a lot faster than any other natural species of fish.

I wish I could have afforded to buy that boat 2 yrs. ago, just was not in the cards back then, nor now,

WTG brah!!

I may end up out there again this summer Fidel(if my bud's mother-in-law does not sell her island place), where is Dog Bone reef in relation to Wiley Point Lodge?? And yeah, bald eagles are flippin' everywhere on this lake. You can sometimes do a complete 180 degree lookabout and see 4-6 of them either flying around or sitting in a tree scanning the water. Which lodges do Tomahawk operate, BTW??

I was on LOTW's for 4 days last summer in the first week of August, and we went for lunch at Wiley Point on the 2nd last day. Turns out we went during the Loisa Regatta and had to negotiate through some 50 or more sailboats which had just left from there. Your summer home. A couple of their boats. When sailboats show up, you will probably be picking up the people from them using the zodiac tenders the outpost owns. A few boats from the Loisa Regatta. And watch out for these guys traveling from island to island. This one was heading right for Wiley Point, as we had just left there. Also, Wiley Point is probably 50 kms from Sioux Narrows, on the opposite side of the lake. I cannot recall if it has road access. Fish in this area are walleye, sauger, black crappie, smallmouth bass, perch, pike, and musky. Largemouth are apparently not too common in this area of the lake, they are further south. And the first time you see the pelicans and cormorants rafting together is quite a picture. Huge birds.

Our server went down.

Board down for over 24 hrs. Ahh well, bet everybody got a whole heckuva lot of other things done.

Left town at 7:15, longish drive, snowmobiled in, and got to the spot we had decided to fish. Found 4 holes with 1 inch of ice on them. Chopped them out, put on a tube jig, and started jigging at 9:39. At 9:45 had my first fish on the ice on a 3 inch white tube not tipped with anything. A smallish 17 Incher, but a nice eater, and since this is a marginal lake trout lake(the deepest it gets is 36-40 ft.)we were not expecting any too much larger. Almost an hour later, my bud hooks one, and it is going nuts under the ice. We were fishing in only 26 ft. of water, so getting them up near the ice doesn't take long. After 45 seconds of headshakes, its off, Shortly thereafter, a couple other guys show up. They have a camp on a nearby perch lake. He put the trail in just over a week ago, took him over an hour on the portage trail, 4.5 minutes for us today to traverse, and these were the holes he used yesterday. I cheesily said "why, thank you very much for your efforts, easy ride in, and got right to fishing without the auger" He chuckled at that, and they went to another point on the lake. Shortly thereafter, I had a hit, no hookup, jigged a couple more times, then whap, fish on. Took it a little easier to tire it out, but the same thing happened. It went nuts near the hole, and got off. I had drilled 8 more holes, and we decided to jig in all of them before deciding to move. No more fish for 45 min., so off we went to a different point. Drilled 16 more holes, and started jigging again. Slow for a while, then my bud hooks one, and he feels some heft. After a 5 min. fight, gets it head in the hole, I jam my hand down into the water, and up comes a chunky laker about 5 lbs., with the hook under its chin. It definately hit, but somehow the hook got dislodged and ended up outside the mouth. Ahh well, he put it back, and my camera was in the sleigh 60 ft. away. 20 min. later, I hook a decent fish, bud runs over to help, fish again goes nuts under the ice, he sees it and says its a nice fish, then my jig is in the hole without a fish on the end of it Drop it back down, 5 min. later get a hit, set the hook, and my bail is not completely closed. Looked at it briefly, and dropped it, grabbed the line, felt weight, and set the hook. Got it 3 ft. up...............and gone, again So my bud brings his vexilar to this hole, and we can see something just up off of bottom, jigged a bit more, but nothing. He goes back to his hut, and I decide to put a set line down with a 6" sucker minnow(first time we actually used a set line this day). It took 45 minutes, and my bud was out of his hut trying other holes, I looked over at my gad, and something just didn't look right. The stick unloaded, and stayed unloaded for 10 seconds. Then, a twitch, and it slowly started to bend over much like a walleye bite. OK, open the bail, drop the jigging rod, and run over to my other line. The fish, just held it 3/4 down without removing the line from the stick. Grabbed it, set the hook, and the fight was on. Felt like another smallish fish, as I got it up near the surface fairly quickly, then it dug in, and stripped all 25 ft. and more of line through my hands. It then just bulldoged, no headshakes, just resisted being brought up. Took my time, about 4 minutes, and got it in the hole, with help from my bud to get it out. Thought I had a fish in the 6 lb. range, but no, a 24", probably 3 lb'r. Man, they really fight hard on this lake. Anyway, I could not remember for sure what sized laker Limeyangler had entered into the tourney. Thought it was a 22" fish, but I got a same sized fish we already have entered from a NGL lake, a 24"r. Took this pic in case I had surpassed Simon's entry. Oh well, I had a nice day fishing, caught what I was targeting, landed my limit, tried to increase our inches for team 3, but in the end, got 2 nice eater trout. Not too bad for almost 6 hrs. of fishing. Total cost gas wise was 32 bucks, minnows were leftover from last weekend. p.s.....I think my laker is purdier than Simon's,

I, and many of us here, know exactly how you feel Jacques. Lost my dad to lung cancer back in 2001, the day before my birthday. Do not feel selfish in any way. Please accept my sincere condolences.

you have a pm.

Cool report Fidel, thanks for that mang. I will never get there, not really interested personally, but nice to see reports like this from people who do want to go to these places.

For a first laker(was that first ever, or first this year?), that's a beaut. I don't fish for whitefish though, but glad you got into them.

One of them will be breakfast tomorrow, :lol:

Pure luck Terry, the pike came out of that one hole(my first fish of the day) and I thought about moving it 20 min. later, but I was jigging in the other 12 holes I drilled and didn't get around to it. Then got my first walleye out of it, so left that line set. Glad I did, as all my fish came out of that one hole. Sometimes it pays to move, sometimes it works out if you don't.

I agree that the pike you caught was heavier than 3 lbs., probably 4.5 at best. Nice fish your GF caught, and also nice sized bass. That sure is going to be a nice meal. Thanks for the report.

Finally got out fishing after no fishing for 6 months. It was an easy trip, drove out on the ice road and just pulled over near a bunch of huts. All lines in by 9:20 and called it a day at 3:30 Set lines with 6 inch sucker minnow did all the work today. I had one hit a jig. Tried lots of different ones, got the hit on a Chubby Darter but no hookup. My bud landed 2 pike jigging, that was it. He had lots of fish come up off bottom and look at his offerings, then drop away(other than the 2 pike). We each landed 4 walleye. I got one 15", two 17", and my one over 18.1:(46 cm) to complete my limit. My bud could only keep 2, one 15", one 20", and landed 2 others over the 46 cm mark, but they had to go back since he already had his one over. We also landed 3 pike, one by me, 2 for my bud, and he also had a bite off(probably a pike). My 24" fish, camera was accidentally on the wrong setting, but I didn't know that until I tried to take a closeup pick for the tourney. After setting my camera to the proper setting, my team 3 entry. My limit for the day. We were surprised the set lines outdid the jigs today, its usually the other way around.

Its in Russia, you can see "webpark.ru" in all but the last picture. I went to http://www.webpark.ru Still surfing the site, although I cannot read Russian.

Having recently gone through this myself, my sincere condolences to you and yours also Ron. Moms are the best. But there is a big hole in our lives when they unexpectedly leave us. Be well Ron, and remember your mom often.

What I find interesting about this picture is that we never see this angle. We see the TV version, with whoever in the frame. It astounded me how many people were actually there, behind the TV camera's.

Yeah, I spotted that also.

This is a compilation of multiple digital pictures taken of Barak Obama's inauguration address. Double click on an area, then use the scroll bars to move elsewhere in the image, or if you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, use that. Or use the zoom controls on the top left hand side. The detail is amazing. You can find some of the places where the images were stitched together. http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.p...6648c2b4b06233c