No Guts, No Glory.

Musky Opener.

Unfortunately, there were no muskies to be had, but here's one of the "consolation" northerns we boated on a scorcher of an afternoon right in the city....

Catchin' Up Again....

See the full gallery on Posterous

The first of the summertime action....

In Training.

I don't think this needs any further explanation....Here's Otto learning the ropes...

End of the season...

I'll try to keep it brief  here... We definitely worked some big fish over the last two days, but, unfortunately we were not able to get any of  'em up on top of the ice. We lost seven or eight on tip ups, and I had a really nice 34" or 36" muskie on a super light crappie rig that I lost after a four or five minute battle... At least we were able to watch that whole fight play out, a foot or two below the ice, and let me tell you, that was one of the single most exciting things I have ever experienced. I just was not able to give it a proper hook set at any time during the fight, I had left my drag too loose, and had no muscle on the reel.  Lesson learned.

We ended up with a couple of small muskie in hand, Brandon had the first rod and reel muskie of the season up through the ice, and a smallish northern was also tallied....Now it is back to jigging for crappies.  Here's hoping....

Leaders...

Another "snowpocalypse" up here right now, so there will be no ice time today.  I figured I would try to make myself useful and tie up some new tip up leader rigs.  20 lb. lo-vis pink flourocarbon, no.6 red treble hooks on the left,  no. 6 black ones on the right, and both are finished off with orange beads and yellow blades.  The reds, oranges and yellows have been working well, so I'll give 'em a shot and just wait to see what happens.

Sucker!

Time for some action...

Any one who cares about fishin',  or huntin',  or campin', or boatin', or just cares about the simple fact that we still have such a vast amount of amazing wilderness left in this country that we are able to experience and explore, should check this out and take a minute to let the folks in Washington know that it is certainly not alright to put any these things on the legislative chopping block...

House Leadership Attacks Wild Lands: Follow our live blog from the debate

By Christopher Lancette on February 15, 2011 - 6:41pm
The U.S. House of Representatives began debate on Feb. 16 on a slew of anti-conservation budget cuts attached to legislation to keep the government running in 2011. These initiatives would deliver crushing blows to wildlands, public health and to economic growth. Follow us as we blog from the Hill and then take action today!

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Skunked...

I was hoping that with the full moon, the cold weather settling back in, the crisp and clear sunny morning, and the storm system we were expecting to be moving in later on in the day, that the fish would be whipped up into a frenzy and that the fishing would be fantastic.  

Wrong.

Four and a half hours and nothin'. 

Bob had gotten out on the ice a couple hours before I had, and he landed the first and only fish I saw a bit before noon.

On the bright side, I got to hang out for a while with a couple of bald eagles. They were sitting side by side up in a tree not too far from me, and man, were they squawkin' at me.  I tried to get closer to take a picture or two, and one of 'em took off, but I got this one right here...

Tip Up Rigs.

These here are a couple of examples of the tip up rigs I have been using this season.

This one here is the business end of my Berkley tip up.  A sweet dual treble hook, quick strike style rig, wound onto 30 lb. Berkley Ice tip up line.

This is on the end of one of my Frabill 10" insulated tip ups.  The spool is wound with Woodstock 65 lb. ice line, smallish Swedish pimple with an upgraded and upsized treble hook in order to accomodate the big 'ol sucker minnows we have been using lately. 

 The final rig here on another Frabill 10' insulated tip up.  Wound with 25 lb. Shakespeare Ugly Braid, and topped off with a Kastmaster maroon and gold flasher, also retro fitted with a slightly larger treble hook, only to accommodate the larger bait fish.