4-7-13

Saturday my friend Jeff and I did some turkey scouting for the upcoming turkey season.  After finding a bunch of turkeys and formulating our plan of attack for the opener next Saturday we turned our focus to ice fishing.  It's april 6th and we still have plenty of good ice for fishing... it's crazy!  We were in search of northern pike since the bait shop was out of minnows, so frozen smelt was the bait of choice.  We set up at the mouth of a large bay with a creek flowing into it.  We put out tip ups in 3-8 feet of water.  

It didn't take long for the pike to start biting.  While putting in our 2nd line we had our first flag with a nice northern!  After getting all our lines set the action was pretty steady.  We had many times where the fish would come in schools and we'd have 2-4 bites at a time!  We ended the day catching many northern in the 3-6 pound range and a couple in the 7-10 pound range!  By the end of the day we were out of smelt and had caught 25-30 northern pike!  It was a great day on the ice, even though we didn't find the giant pike we were hoping for.

The ice was deteriorating quickly around the shorelines so if you venture out please use extreme caution.  The lake is rising, the days are longer, the sun stronger... not a good recipe for ice.  But that means it's almost time for the boat!!!