Tyler Event - Great day!

[tonyb]

Well as tradition goes, it was time for the annual Fishing for Tyler fundraise that Maureen somehow manages to pull off successfully each year with the help of some key people. As usual, there were smiles all around as well as good food and camaraderie.

 

My fishing partner for the day was Aaron Shirley from the Getting Hooked TV show...he had the gadgets and plan to get us out to where the fish were... When we walked out onto the ice we had made it out quite a ways when we saw a handful of pickups pass by us. We stopped in our tracks and Aaron returned to the parking lot to get his truck so we wouldn't have to walk so far. We had realized that the structure that looked so good on the Navionics chart that he had loaded into his sonar was about 4.5 miles away!

 

Our plan was to hook up the gps unit and drive along while following the contour lines on the hydrographic chart to about 80 feet of water...well the first spot where we drilled a hole was actually only 65 feet of water, so we headed deeper. Next stop was 70 feet of water...and so we kept moving deeper until we found 82 feet of water.

 

Not long after we drilled holes we had the sonars going and were marking fish near bottom! A good sign. We had 2 tip-ups and then we each were jigging spoons. We both had fish interested in our spoons but most of them would look at the jig, swim up to it, and then swim away.

 

It wasn't long and Aaron yells Fish on! I ran over and helped him land the fist Lake trout of the day.

 

That Laker fell to the classic Williams Ice jig in the half-n-half pattern with the hammered metal look (gold/silver)

It was kind of funny when Aaron hooked that fish...I had been desperately trying to shake a skunk curse that has been following me around for the last half-dozen ice fishing trips, and thought it wasn't fair that Aaron had caught the fish and not me...but my turn was coming!

 

It was a struggle to keep an eye on the tip-ups that we had deployed. It seemed that whenever you wanted to check the tip-ups a fish would appear on the sonar, checking out our jigs. So we had to force ourselves to keep an eye on the tip-ups, to make a point of at least eye-balling them regularly.

 

One of the times I looked over I saw the tip-up dip down hard, and then stay down. I did the kamikaze run towards it and set the hook, the battle began! It was hand to fin combat for what seemed like forever on the 6lb test line. I would get the fish close and then it would make a big run and I would have to feed it line carefully. It really helped having an extra set of hands to keep the line from getting tangled on the ice - Thanks Aaron!

 

Finally after meticulously aligning the fishes head into the hole, Aaron scooped it up and handed it over for the photo.

And another with the tip-up in the picture...

 

The smile says it all - no more Skunk today!

 

Not long after that I had a few aggressive fish checking out the spoon on the sonar, I could sense that I was going to get another strike...you could tell when there was an interested fish because you could lure them up away from bottom, sometimes up to 30' off bottom as was the case with one eager Trout that Aaron was teasing. At one point he called me over and I got to witness a hilarious scene unfold on the screen of the Humminbird sonar, a fish was totally set on chasing Aarons spoon, but it wouldn't commit and strike. He was able to have it dancing up and down all over the screen...like bowshep said after it was like the waving 3 stooges hand gimmick that Moe would do to Curly!

 

Enough of that though, and we had a good laugh at that crazy fish, but I wanted to catch more fish!

 

I got my wish after switching spoons to a small silver Kastmaster spoon, and the result of some fancy Temagami twitch jigging!

 

 

This particular Trout was sufficient to place first in the mini-derby that was held in support of Tyler and his family!

 

After that we continued to try to catch one of Simcoe's elusive Whitefish but today it was all about the Lake Trout!

 

Here is the days catch altogether...

 

And of course, the wonderful prizes...

 

Thanks again to everyone involved with the event, it is a great thing to be a part of and I look forward to doing it again next year!

 

Tony

Edited February 24, 2008 by tonyb

[tbayboy]

Beauty Lakers Tony, you guys had a plan and it paid off so congrats on getting that skunk off!

[Joey]

You two did awesome today Tony. Way to go

 

Great seeing you again and congrats on the win, it was well deserved.

 

See you out on the ice again soon I hope.

 

Joey

[PERCHER]

Congrats on the great prizes.You guys had a great plan that turned into a great day.Way to go.

Dan

[Shelley Cooper]

WTG Tony...

 

Awesome laker's....

 

Congrats on the win... Great prize too...

[Spiel]

....Spectacular, you done well young man.

[ccmtcanada]

Fantastic Tony! You guys got some great looking fish! Congrats on your prizes as well...they were well earned.

[Terry]

ya done good

at first I thought you were going to walk right by that hut and pick up one of the smaller prizes.....but you got around to picking it

 

nice haul

[Gerritt]

Awesome Job Tony! I was nice to see you again. I had to chuckle as you were walking around the prize tarp... then you saw the Trap beside the table.... Hey Mo is this a prize too? LOL your face lit up when she said it was... SCORES!

 

Awesome fish brother be sure to include some dinner pics when you get a chance.

 

Congrats again!

 

G

[LeXXington]

That was some super fish, 4 miles out though LOL, If I want that far I would have been still walking back.

 

Great to meet you and Aaron.