pond hop 2-18

I got out to a small pond where they were planning a kids clinic to scout it out for fishy spots. as soon as I got there it started to snow pretty good. I whent to the far end of the pond where the fishing pier was think that would be the deep area. wrong! only 5 ft
I started cutting holes towards where I got on. it started dropping off.
No fish were marked on my flasher, but I did pull up some small shiners while cutting holes.
Then I got the call that the event was canceled because of the snow.
I fished a few of the holes, even using a
my super micro palm rod to see if I could hook a shiner or tiny perch, but the snow was piling up and I had to drive out of the valley with my 2 wd ranger, so I bailed. Skunk!

Birthday bluegills 2-19

I got to spend my birthday chasing my favorite fish on East rush lake Saturday. I found a pretty good bite around 8 ft with lots of bright green pondweed. I got 50 or so gills and kept a dozen nice eaters. A gold 4mm tungsten with a pumpkin pepper nuggie got my fish today.
Then jack bought me a burger that was great at flickabirds resort.
This coming Saturday is jacks birthday, so we are going to the same place, only we will be after his favorite fish, crappies. Though I bet I will "acidenally" nab more than a few sunfish too haha!

Morning pond hopping

Now that we are having longer days, I am able to get out and wet a line before work. I think I will explore little potholes around the metro area and see what I can come up with.
Monday had me out on a small pond near the airport in Richfield. I have to travel light because I need the space in my pickup for work. just two rods, a folding ice auger, and my A-rest chair is all I had.
I got going a bit late and only had a half hour to fish. I found some holes froze over with only a inch that were easy to open up. I dropped a gold jig and nuggie, and dropped, and dropped. it was over 30 ft deep!
Now I was wishing I had my flasher! I worked the bottom 10 ft of water in a couple of holes without so much as a twitch of a bite in my line.
I cut a few holes towards shore, and worked my way shallower. my last holes were near shore, and it was still 12 ft! No bites and time was running out! I grabbed my other rod with the indicator and a 2 mm jig, baited it with a half a waxworm in hopes of at least a small one to dodge the skunk. then work called, they had a rush run I had to go like, now!
Looked like the skunk got me, but i looked at my rod and the indicator was straight down. must be a tangle I thought. but as I pulled in I felt something wriggling, yes, a fish! whoohooo! still no skunk for my yet this winter!
More pond hopping reports to come next week!

Rods locked and loaded!

Mighty perch, came to save my day!

Sunday on Tonka 2-13

I had a good time sunday chasing some panfish. they were still up in the shallows and willing to bite jigs with plastic tails or larva with ies and sunfish, with a couple of largemouth bass in the mix.
It was kind of spotty, with lots of hole hopping needed. get one or a few, then on to the next hole. It was nice not having refreeze issues with the warm weather!
Thanks for coming out Mark, Jack, Dave and Andy. Special thanks to Dave for buying us pizza and delievering it on the lake, that was great!

Chisago panfish tournament pics 2-12

We had some great weather for this event and the crappies came out to play!
During practice the weekend before, nicer crappies were hard to find, but they found us this weekend. i think just about everyone got some good ones. both deep and shallow tactics were taking fish. We got alot of ours in shallow grass,with many hitting right under the ice.
The sunfish were biting well too, getting them on larger plastics meant for crappies even. The key to winning was to find the larger sunfish to go along with the crappies. Congrats to Pat and Chad for two wins in a row!!!
See everyone on Rush lake!

Sunday Chisago Sunfish

Panfish chasing on Chisago was pretty good, with sunfish all over the shallows willing to bite plastics. Not huge, but they make up for it with brilliant colors!

Afternoon had the Rodger brothers grilling up some burgers, yummm! thanks guys, and we had a nice little Thorne bros/UPL get together!

Holes for Heros fishing report

I had a great time at this event! I rode up to medicine lake with Dave Lindmark of GEM fishing, and Darius, one of our regular fishin' kids.
We got there and found a huge area plowed off the lake for the event, but no holes drilled yet. So me and Dave got out our augers and started to make the ice look like swiss cheese.
I am sure glad I had my Tanaka power auger with the 6 inch nilsmaster bit, that  made cutting those holes a cakewalk!
Aftyer around 200 holes, we got our lines out to see what was down there, I was dissapointed to find it was only 10 ft, but there were some perch down near the bottom willing to play, so that was a relief!
During the event, Dave found an area where the bluegills were stacked pretty good. I set up there for the rest of the day , and got many kids to give it a try. the fish were willing to bite and many young fishers got to catch their first fish ever through the ice!
Plus many got to learn hnow a flasher works, how to hook a larva, tightlining, and watching a springbobber. One kid won a prize for smallest fish caught during the contest from my hole, a .01 # sunfish!
We had over 400 hundred participents for a very successful event!