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My quest for the big one!!


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  • Jim Panfish Uran

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how big was that monster in the first pic? IMO, there's nothing more fun than suspended crappies! Something about when your watching the flasher and the jig is only 2-3 feet down and you can see the fish already moving up on the flasher is just a rush.

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Went fishing with leechbait last night, can't wait to do a report on it. The search continues for his 16" crappie! God Bless <3

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Hey Harvey!

Best year ever up this way, lack of snow makes them more aggressive and also easier to get on small lakes in the woods we normally would not get to due to deep snow depth. Supposed to get around 5" this evening and tonight so that will put a damper on things but March is just around the corner!

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Ok finally made it to a keyboard, to tough to write a decent report from my phone!

Saturday morning the guys met me at 7:30, was supposed to be 7:00 but I ran late blush

We initially planned on hitting a lake a little further north initially but I fished it for 3 hours the night before, drilled about 30 holes and didn't even mark a fish so we scratched that one and came up with a new lake that I had luck on in the past.

We hit the ice and bbfenatic and I each start drilling a line of holes and Basswhacker followed us along and marked the depth and we started fishing, we were pulling in perch here and there but nothing to be proud of. bb moved to the north end of the bar and put in some work and found 4 walleyes!

He came back and told us what he was catching so we moved over there with him, I found a hot hole and pulled in a dozen and a half decent bluegills and basswhacker caught his fair share.

We fished til about 10 or so and moved on to lake number #2 on our list. It was a walk in only lake and we went to work drilling holes all over the place, anywhere from 22 fow to 14 fow. We found fish, crappies and big perch, but they were moving moving moving. We stayed on the move and followed them around catching one here and one there! It was a good mid day bite. The key depth seemed like 16-17 fow.

On to lake #3, another small lake back in the sticks. We were able to drive on this one though. We went to work again drilling drilling and drilling. Through the basin, along the edge of the basin, and up against the flooded timber. BB and Basswhacker got into some dandy jumnbo perch, and I found some gils up against the weeds and flooded timber but not one crappie. I had high hopes for that lake, we met some guys on the way out, they were set up over a basin in 38 fow, looked they were hunkered down for the crappie bite but we were on the move to lake #4.

We got to out final lake around 6:00 and drilled about 15 holes, we were anywhere from 30-40 feet and we were on fish fast, nice crappies suspended no more than 15 feet down and they were hungry when they showed up. They would come up and just smack the lure. We had a hard time marking fish due to all of the bugs or whatever that was rising in the water column, but adjusting the flasher helped.

All in all it was an awesome(tiring) day and I would do it again in a heart beat. I didn't have my camera along so I didn't get any pics.... I know, stupid! Next time. I have a feeling there will be a few more adventures like this in March!

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On to Sunday, it was a nice day to be on the ice. Mid 30's a 10 mph wind out of the southeast and mixed clouds and sun.

We got to the house at about 3:00 and I drilled the holes and got them cleaned out and Lengbyprincess was on the fish right away. I tied on a red Bro-bug and tipped it with waxies and she was slamming them in no time!

Here she is with a 9incher!

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I drilled a few holes outside for myself to move around and fish and I had we both had no trouble reeling in one gil in after another. I even found a few crappies, the weird thing is they were under the ice no more than 5 to 6 feet. With out my Humminbird I wouldn't have seen these fish smile

full-11084-17855-img_1371(1024x683).jpg

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Nice job L.B.! I see you are breaking in one of those new Striker ice suits. Gonna get one eventually. Are they warm?

My son and I were in your neck of the woods Sunday and Monday. Did rather well on pannies. Biggest Crappies were 13". Kept a few for a meal and threw the majority back down the hole for the next trip. Having trouble posting the pics. May need to be downsized.

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If you are having trouble email them to me and I'll gladly post them!

Yes the Striker suit is very nice! This is the Striker Lite and it was definitely warm enough over this past weekend. I put a lot of hours in over the weekend, although it was mild weather, it blocked the wind well and kept me dry!

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I know this will probably start a frenzy on this thread, but if you guys ever do the atv thing in the back woods again, this die hard would love to tag along. I have a Grizzly 700 and a Yukon that go everywhere with me. Man, that sounded fun!

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Heck yeah Bison! Only thing is, we took bbfenatics suburban. No ATV's this time!

But let's start up another thread on a get together in March. Maybe we can get some guys together and go tear up some lakes in the backwoods again. I also have an ATV and like that idea smile

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Hey Jim, I sent you an email. Did the pics go through?

If you are having trouble email them to me and I'll gladly post them!

Yes the Striker suit is very nice! This is the Striker Lite and it was definitely warm enough over this past weekend. I put a lot of hours in over the weekend, although it was mild weather, it blocked the wind well and kept me dry!

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Heck yeah Bison! Only thing is, we took bbfenatics suburban. No ATV's this time!

But let's start up another thread on a get together in March. Maybe we can get some guys together and go tear up some lakes in the backwoods again. I also have an ATV and like that idea smile

My suburban has never been in 4 Low this much, heck one time coming out of the woods onto pavement I thought something was wrong and Leechbait (Jim) goes; "I think you can take it out of Low Gear now!" Going to be tough with all this new snow so my guess it will be ATV's and/or snomobiles this next Trek but it would be fun to get a group together!

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Fished with my brother on Friday night down by naytahwaush and caught a dozen crappies from 7:00 til 8:00 but nothing big, fished up by me last night for an hour and caught quite a few decent bluegills with one being 9.5". Very colorful too. Maybe he will be 11" next year I threw them all back.

Was going to go with my bro again last night but it was too late, he went out and caught 16 crappies with my uncle, my uncle reeled in a fifteen incher...... beautiful fish. I might have to spend a little more time on that lake so I have a chance at that 16 incher.

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After reading all 11 pages, I'm super excited to come fish with you on the 21st of March. Hopefully some of those lakes will be accessible for us. bb is scoping out some lakes that don't require the trek just in case. Can't wait to get my yearly ice fishing itch in grin

Glad you guys are getting some use out of my Clam Hub and 1 man fish trap!

See you both in a few weeks!

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Dog:

Hopefully we get some good melting by then, drove out to Lida yesterday afternoon even before last night snow/wind and it is a no go. Road only plowed to that Liquor Establishment about 200 yds out. Winds last night made it even worse I am sure. I have found 2 good spots on smaller lakes with easy access to drive on; or not far of a walk (within 100 yds of parking spot)

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3 weeks away, I'm sure we have plenty of melting time before now and then. I'll find us a hot bite buddy, don't worry!

BB, the first lake we fished last weekend will be putting out some awesome fish come the end of march.

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Yes the last one, I think we will be able to get them to go during the day sometime because the water has a tint to it, that makes a difference.

Went out with my brother last night and did pretty good on the crappies. We ended up catching 16 of them, the average size was 11" and the biggest one just over 13". He only caught a couple the night before but he fishes blind, meaning no flasher. He was fishing 3 feet off the bottom with a minnow on a green glow demon.

About 6:30 I saw a big red mark on the humminbird about 9 feet off of the bottom, I reeled up a foot above it and it rushed up and smacked the red glow Lindy Frostee. So I kept fishing that depth and reeled in 3 decent fish in a couple of minutes and that school moved on.

We started catching them off of the bottom just a few feet for the next hour or so. Curt eventually switched to a red Lindy Frostee and started having better luck grin

We were fishing an off shore underwater point that dropped into 25 feet of water, we were right on the ege of that point in 25. The house has been there for a week and each trip has produced some nice slab crappies!

Have a trip tomorrow to a lake that is known to produce 12" bluegills, tough to get to so it will be a pain just getting out there but I know we will have a good shot at some awesome fish and a chance at getting my 11" bluegill! There is also a lake next to it that has some dandy crappies, never fished it but, hey that's half the fun. I think we are capable anglers and if there are fish in it, we will find them.

Wish me luck

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Nice report L.B. The demon and frostee are a couple of my favorite lures that seem to produce on any lake. Looking forward to another video starring Mr. 12" bluegill.

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It sure seems like a ghost! I kind of set the bar high, but hey I like a challenge! Tomorrow I was planning on going right out in the morning but someone has to work so looks like it will be an afternoon trip!!

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Well the report is here!

Friday night I hit my bro's fishhouse and we fished together for a while and he had his woman coming over so he ditched me out in the fishhouse grin Can't blame him.

I think I ended up with 7 crappies that night and left while they were still biting. They would come in in waves a few at a time. I missed a few bites and dropped one at the top of the hole. Nothing to big but some decent crappies hit the pail. 10"to 11"ers.

Saturday, whhhew what a cold windy day it turned out to be. It was in the teens and the wind was howling out of the northwest. Not the best of conditions, high pressure systems tighten the lips on the panfish.

I met a buddy near the lake and we jumped on his 2-up sled and made the treck through the woods a few miles to the lake. There was another group already out there fishing but they weren't having the best of luck and they left not too long after we got there.

We started out in the middle of the lake next to some deeper water and marked quite a few fish, had a few hits but no fish. So we moved to the northwest side of the lake to help void the wind. We fished from 7 feet to 12 feet of water. We knew from recent reports that there were big gills in there so we were fighting through the tough conditions to find some active fish.

Finally Loren hooks up with a fish, got it to the top of the hole and it was a 5 inch bluegill... Immediate dissapointment set in lol. Well not that bad, but you know what I mean. A couple small fish later and we both finally caught a decent gill. Nothing huge but both respectable fish between 9 and 10 inches. Didn't get any pictures because we assumed we would catch a few more like that but we didn't. Smaller fish hit the ice the rest of the afternoon and we figured we would get rolling before it got any colder.

My Striker Lite jacket and bibs kept me warm all afternoon, but it was my rod and line that were freezing up, I can't stand fishing like that. Yes we had a shelter but we never even bothered to set it up because the fish were too hard to peg down in one hole.

I have a feeling we will be back out there later this month when hole hopping and fishing on the open ice is more enjoyable.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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