Go With What You Know

After all that talk about chasing muskies under the ice, I'm still skunked after 2 more trips to that lake.  During my last time out, I determined in my mind that my next fishing trip would be to one of my old faithful spots.  I secured permission from my reluctant wife to spend Saturday up at my in-laws with my two oldest kids.  I called a few friends and relatives to see if anyone wanted to join us.  I got a couple of takers.  My cousins, Jared and Jeff, came out.  Jared also brought his son.  My brother-in-law Josh stopped by for a little bit, bringing along his youngest boy.

Jared and I started by putting out tip-ups along the shore in front of my in-laws' in depths from about 6 to 12 feet.  When we finished, I looked up and saw my boy heading up the stairs to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  He didn't even last 20 minutes, and I could see that he was taking off with my beef jerky.  Grandpa was heading up with him and I knew that they'd both enjoy each other's company, so it was probably for the best.  My daughter headed up shortly after, taking our bag of licorice with her.  Oh well, I could call up to them if we got into a nice fish.

We started out by piddling around in the area where we caught our perch during the last trip.  We hooked a couple, but it didn't appear that this area was going to produce like it did for us a few weeks ago.  There were a lot of fish on the flasher, but they didn't want to do anything more than sniff the minnow.  Those little green bars of light would slide up under my bait and then quickly drop back down to the solid red bottom.  Jeff was the first one to venture into deeper water.  He found some nice bluegills in 20 feet of water.  We watched as he could barely get his wax worm to the bottom before another eager gill clamped on.  One flag popped and we got a fat little bass, maybe 15 inches.  That thing was so sluggish that it didn't even take 2 feet of line out.  I'm surprised that it didn't get hit in the head by the egg sinker when it grabbed the minnow.  Maybe it did and was just too cold to care.

Just as we were getting warmed up, Jared's boy stuck his finger with a hook and then stepped knee deep into an ice hole in the ensuing panic.  I watched as Jared tried to calm his small son and then he let him know that they could go home if he wanted to.  The boy did want to go home and Jared packed up without hesitation.  That's some great fathering.  I'm pretty sure that I would have been reaching for some "win one for the Gipper" class inspiration to keep my kids out there.  I'd pull out promises of money, delicious snacks, and later bedtimes.  Anything to keep them on the ice.  My wife would definitely say that I could learn something from Jared.

After awhile, it was just Jeff and me.  I gradually inched out towards him until we were practically within arm's length of each other.  By then, he had a nice pile of gills and one nice crappie.  They had slowed down, so we both dropped small minnows down in pursuit of the perch.  We landed several in the 7-9 inch range and one 11 inch pig.  Our panfish quest was interrupted when the furthest flag away saluted.

As I headed towards the tip-up, I noticed that the handle wasn't spinning.  I figured that it was another grab and drop or maybe just the wind blowing the flag up.  I got a little closer and off it went.  The fish was taking a long run.  Had to be a pike.  I got my fingers on the line with the fish still running and gave a quick little tug to set the hook.  I gained a little ground before it took off again.  This fish made several long runs.  As I was fighting this fish, another flag tripped just 15 yards away.  I called to Jeff and he headed over.  My fish was running right at this other tip-up, so we wondered if she had pulled the line through the second tip-up's line.  We could see the handle spinning, so something was going on.  We're still not sure what happened there.  All Jeff was able to pull in was an empty hook.  No minnow, no pike.  He came over and helped me manage my line.  There was a strong wind at my back and the line was falling all over itself.  By the time the pike's runs had shortened to brief bursts close to the hole, I had knots all over the place.

The fish finally made a pass under the hole where we could get a look at her.  We saw a huge fish with a wide back.  I told Jeff that this was a big fish and maybe even a new personal best.  I had to let her pass by a few more times as the line had gone under her belly and I wasn't able to turn her head into the hole.  Finally, I got my chance and I pulled her up and onto the ice.  She started those big slow flops that monster pike make when they find themselves on the wrong side of the ice.

They had noticed up at the house that this fight was taking longer than normal, so everyone came pouring out.  I ran back to my bucket to get my mouth spreader and pliers, and also my camera, scale, and tape measurer.  This beast did turn out to be my personal best by one inch.  It was just a touch over 40 inches and weighed 15 pounds.  We took several pictures with several cameras and phones and back into the hole she went.  I held her for a minute before her fins began to move.  Then she started gaining strength and her whole body began to slowly wave back and forth.  She finally pulled free with a strong surge and disappeared back under the ice to find a quiet weed bed to rest in.

Figuring out new water and unmastered fish is definitely part of what makes this sport so enjoyable.  When some of those experiments don't work out, at least not right away, it's really good to have those spots and fish that you know and that produce.  There's a reason they're your favorites.  I just got a 40-inch reminder with big teeth.  Point taken.