Crappie Time- December 17, 2011

The fish were coming in short waves- a quick 5 minute bite and they were gone for another 45 minutes or more.  I caught these two one after the other, just after my buddy Chris left the Fish Trap to grab something outside.  By the time he got back  in, it was too late.  We set up a big 6' x 12' pop-up portable as a base camp and then two of us decided to set up the Fish Trap to try to take advantage of the fact that the fish were wandering.  One was in about 18' and the other around 22'.  The amount of action seemed pretty much the same at either depth.

My cousin Ben and his buddy Luke came down for the day.  Luke's dad sent down some wicked good venison snacks and we even cooked some back straps using a propane heater.  The frying pan was kind of teetering, but we only had one incident- amazingly, the pan landed right-side-up.

One of the better fish of the day.  The average was around 11".  We ended up with about 20 fish for 4 people.  If those hot streaks just could have lasted a little longer...

Almost Skunked

Catch of the day- an LED light that I found lying in the snow during my walk off the lake.  It still works!  I'll count this as a "catch" to keep my no-skunk streak intact for this ice season.

A brief outing this morning at my favorite fishing hole didn't produce any fish, but I did get clued in on what I was doing wrong just before I had to leave for the day.  Apparently, the fish are slightly shallower than my usual way point, so I'll try to verify that tomorrow.  A crew of friends and relatives will be here for the day, and I've been talking up this spot for weeks- hopefully it doesn't disappoint. 

Deer Hunting 2011

After 10 days of seeing only does and smaller bucks, my persistence finally paid off!  As anybody who was out during the Minnesota firearms season knows, conditions were less than ideal most of the time.  On several days, high winds or too much moonlight the previous night tended to keep deer from moving around as much as normal.  On the morning of November 18th, my cousin Tom and I agreed that the conditions seemed to be working in our favor for once and we hit the woods feeling good about our chances.  After about 5 minutes in the stand, I looked up and there he was!  Luckily I had done a little touch-up work in a patch of this brush the previous day, giving me just enough of an opening to make a clean shot on this 8 pointer.  The icing on the cake was that this year I had my cousin there to share in the day and help out with the dirty work.  Thanks cousin!  I'm already looking forward to next year.