night bite papermouths

sunset on Lake County ice

The photo above was take with my i-phone using the Photosynth app. It takes multiple photos as you manually pan the phone in a certain direction and stitches them all together. I really like the results even though there is a few areas I can pinpoint distortions. Check out the app, its free.

night bite crappies Lake county style

I had a terrible time catching anything other then 3 inch perch and rock bass. This was the first time fishing in heavy weeds and will say that the Hummingbird Ice 35 I bought a few years back has a hard time clearing the noise in weedy situations. Over open water and sparse cover it works perfect but over moderate weeds its just not as sensitive as some higher end models. I honestly spend 2 hours looking for a wire kink and loose connections thinking the unit was broken. Well I tested the unit again today over clear water

with no cover and back to working perfect. Hmmm... I guess I'm starting to understand the limitations of my equipment.

I'm thankful for good ice fishing friends who keep the conversation going and add the the keeper pile. 

Stay tuned for daddy daughter day on the ice!

sidelined

It has been an uneventful couple weeks on the fishing front unless you take into account the dozen or so flies I've tied up. Two weekends ago we experienced some freak weather reaching nearly 50 degrees with some pretty consistent rain. My better judgement kept me off the ice that weekend.

Last weekend I attended our annual sales training meeting for work. Even though the temps have fallen below a two year low, no fishing for me. Thankfully I have some pretty cool friends that have continued to plug away.

Shawn, thanks for the bang lake pike photo.

Neal, are those gills really as big as a 20 oz bottle?

Randall, when we going fishing?

I'm looking forward to this weekend more then most.

double bunny streamer

double bunny streamer 

hook- streamer style to match target species
thread- any, I like the hot spot red makes on these colors
head- cone
body- two strips magnum cut rabbit strip, a few added pieces of flash added to the top


A versatile fly made from the joining of two separate strips of magnum cut rabbit. What I am liking most of all is the infinite color and size combinations, the possibilities are really endless. I tied my fly on a size 6 streamer hook but its an easy pattern to up or down-size. I'm making them in all different sizes for steelhead, trout, and bass...

The top strip of rabbit is fastened at the tail and the same single piece is then pulled forward to be tied off inside the cone. The bottom strip is pierced by the hook and run up the shank of the hook to the top where it should be set to marry with the top piece, tie it also off at the cone on the underside.

ice fishing report for the fox chain of lakes

The ice depth on our southern lakes are quickly approaching five inches. Snowmobiles and atv's are out in full force right now so foot travel in most places is relatively safe. Taking advantage of some of the firmer ice we made a long trek on a hunch to an area we believed might be an off the beaten path wintering hole.

footsteps on the fox chain of lakes

It didn't take long to realize that the pressure here was 100% local. This was one of those spots where everyone knew everyone but us, and we stuck out like a sore thumb. Not to say they weren't nice to us, in fact they were down right cordial. Small talk and a few anecdotes aside, the fishing was  down right decent. We came from far and wide searching for papermouths and with a good bit of sorting we took a respectable bag.

a fox chain of lakes papermouth pile

Warm weather and some rain looms in the near future and is predicted for mid-week stretching into the weekend. It's supposed to drop down to sub-arctic temps right after the warm front so I would imagine it wont make much of a dent in the ice, we shall see.

ice fishing pistakee lake

A short report from new years day. We fished Pistakee Bay working our way from the south end up. It actually worked out well catching bluegill in the shallows progressively working are way to deeper water for crappies as it got later.

In the shallows it took many holes to get on a single fish but once I found that first good hole, it was really good. Some of the best bluegills so far this winter came to hand.

Pistakee lake bluegills

As we worked into the deeper water a few more crappies were caught along with a few nice whites (not pictured) and plenty of sheephead.

small crappie from Pistakee lake

Those not familiar with the chain or Pistakee lake in specific should note that Pistakee Bay is one of the few deep spots on the south end of our chain. The depth here provides a huge wintering pool for multiple species and the phrase "community hole" hits the nail right on the head. I don't think its such a bad phrase because at least people fish here for a reason. The reason is because there are fish here, Duh...

Knowing that brilliant revelation, now you just have to be smarter going about catching the fish. I've had some of my best success fishing plastics here. Showing the fish something different and once they are interested, take it away with reckless regard. Ice depth was over 4 inches and growing like crazy while we were there.

big things come in small packages

“Currents” has long been one of my favorite fishing blogs. It’s somewhat local, yet far enough to feel unfamiliar. But, it focuses on those things that I love most about fishing; trout, smallies, fly fishing, the driftless, and tying. I've been following along post by post for almost a year now. Recently, I had made a comment on one of the fly patterns on their site called the “dirty mop”, a great looking bugger pattern that looks dynamite for some small stream trouts. Low and behold, a tiny package arrived at my door just in time for Christmas. Its contents, a handful of “dirty mops” that I promise to put to good use on the trout streams next spring.

John, thanks so much for the time you put into making my Christmas that much more merry. For the rest of you, be sure to check out their site. 

• the samurai (their best fly of 2012)
• dirty mops

dirty mops (photo borrowed from Currents)