Cold Minnetonka ice outing

I met up with some guys from CKOutdoors on lake Minnetonka. it was too cold to stand around and shoot the bull, so i went at the ice drilling and fishing 15 to 20 holes at various depths. I found plenty of fish willing to bite, but the were all tiny sunfish and perch. I got one pike around three pounds on a fatboy jig tipped with maggots. After a while I got tired of fishing, went in Andy's portable to hang out, and he cooked me up some brats with jalepeno chees filling! yummm. Went over to oles portable and chatted for a whille and caught a few young perch too.
Afterwards I procedded to my van for a short nap. Everyone left but andy. we decided to fish til dark hoping for a crappie bite to kick in. Some crappies did move in and I was able to goad a couple into taking T.H.E. jig, but they were not big enough to hold our interest in the bitter cold, so we packed it up. I kept nothing but went home with two big jars of pickled pike thanks to Andy and Mike!

bigmouth

My only decent bluegill out of 30 or so

Nighttime crappies on the jig

Metro panfish outing

Me and Jack hit a small metro lake for some panfish action. we got lots of good eating sized crappies and a few bluegills. They were at around 15 ft down in 20 feet.
I got mine on a fatboy jig with maggots, I think Jack got his on a ratso jig. It was nice to get out in the sun with no wind!

Too Dark? take the first MT bucket poll!

Bass Pundit has let me know that some of my pics on my last post were so in need of brightening that they are "pretty much lousy", so I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a fun little vote to see what others think, so please post your comments on which one you think looks best.

Here is the pic he gave as an example, a bit dark probably, but i thought was ok.

Here are three alternatives you can vote for if you prefer one of these to the original, or you can give it a shot and send me your version which I will post on the bucket!
1. Here is BPs attempt. better lighting for sure, but it looks like it was taken with a foggy lense!


Here are a couple of my attempts
2.


3.

Thanks for your comments! vote 0 for the original, or 1, 2, or 3 for the others, or make your own up. its all for fun though! best fishes!

MT

Snowstorm sunfish

We had our annual up north ice fishing outing this weekend, We were going to fish a few different lakes looking for the biggest panfish. lots of snow and temps down to 30 below had us change our plans and we stayed at the lake were we were staying on and fished for sunfish the whole time.
It was hard to get around without snowmobiles, it was so deep, and the slush was bad, but we still found lots of nice sunfish mostly in 16 ft. We used small jigs tipped with maggots, or plastics, gulp!waxies worked well too.

first fish for me

big huge sunfish!



Casey with a big mule



Jack scores with this nice bull bluegill




snow kept covering my flasher, but it didnt stop me from getting some nice panfish




Cory with a whale!



more good ones