Man was it cold!!!!!!Mar 8-9

[curt quesnell]

And the fishing wasnt so great either.<P>I have planned late Feb and most of March<BR>and into April for ice fishing all winter.<BR>I chucked one weekend and stayed home, since<BR>then I have been fishing either Red Lake or <BR>LOW and the pattern will continue.<P>When its 15 below and 25 mph winds I will<BR>not move once I am set up. Recipe for failure? Probably.<P>Saturday afternoon two of us hit So Point<BR>of Buffalo. Figured we were shallow, so <BR>sure in fact we never checked depth until <BR>we were set up. 24 feet (near the deepest<BR>water in the area.) Fished from 3:30 to 6:30<P>Kept Perchzilla and two decent Walleyes and<BR>a Sauger. The little fish must be everywhere<BR>because there were plenty of those. We were<BR>using Angel Eye Jrs, Buckshot rattle spoons<BR>and under the bobbers small jigs and plain<BR>hooks.<P>Sunday we went to Bablers Road and the reefs.<BR>Right after the guy took my 5 bucks he said<BR>the road was drifted shut. He then said if<BR>you stayed just to the right of the road you<BR>SHOULD be ok. Well I never said I was smart.<P>We were the first ones out and with some<BR>manuvering we got out to Arnesons Reef and<BR>to what we thought was the deep deep. Checking the depth before setting up this <BR>time it was 24 feet deep. I didnt relish the<BR>thought of tempting fate by driving around<BR>in the deep drifted snow but 3 more stops<BR>and checks came up with 32 feet on the north<BR>west side.<P>Fishing was better, but still not great. one<BR>more Perchenstine, a 19 inch Walleye and<BR>4 more keeper Walleyes and Saugers and 3 Tulibees by the time we quit at noon. (getting off the lake was no more fun than getting on) <P>When it is extremely cold like it was this<BR>weekend stuff just doesnt want to work. We<BR>Had finicky heaters and augers but managed<BR>to coax everything into working. At 10:30<BR>Sunday morning my propane tank went empty!!!<BR>!!!!!!!!!!!!You can heat a portable fishhouse<BR>to comfort (even in real cold weather)with<BR>a Coleman Northstar propane lantern.<P>Glad the weekend is over, cant wait till <BR>next weekend<P>Curt Quesnell<BR>

[Kaz]

Hi Curt: COLD Huh? Well, one of my buds was up and he said it was so cold, he set a pot of boiling water outside and froze before it quit boiling! Thats cold. I don't want to tell what the high temp was here, but my nose is sunburned....Kaz

[bturck]

Curt: Stand by everything is going to change shortly. Our local weather channel in St Cloud, says 44 degrees by Saturday. Talked to Brian at Riverbend, he wants to go reef jumping with the Bombers when we get up there on 3/20. If the weather stays in the 40's it should be a great time. Sounds like you could use a warm up, I got cold just reading your posts. Good luck and hang on. Bill

[1tofish]

Hey Curt<BR>Are you going out of Sprinsteel when your heading for the south tip? and if so how's the road?<P>Thanks<BR>1tofish (aka 1tohunt)

[Hemlock]

Hey Curt, good to meet you on Thursday. We had a good time up there. Fishing was slow, dead compared to other trips. We were nicely pampered by the resort and their staff. I really liked the fact that if you missed the bomber ride out early in the morning, you could still hit them up for a 10:30 ride. Sounds like you put in a good effort for not a heck of a lot of fish, summer won't be here soon enough, eh? <P>------------------<BR>Hemlock<BR>"Throw'm back"

[curt quesnell]

1toFish,<P>I can never tell if the road has been plowed<BR>or not. There is one breaker right up by <BR>shore that is bridged, right after that tracks go everywhere. <P>It was very windy but the area stayed travelable(?)<P>Hemlock,<P>Great to meet you too. By the looks of your<BR>group I figured you'd have a good time even<BR>if you didnt get tons of fish. <P>Curt Quesnell

[Wobbler]

I can attest that the weather was terrible on Saturday. I got stuck going to one of the reefs in the morning and also stuck trying to jump the banks to get on the other side of Babler's road. Fishing was slower than it has been lately. My brother and I kept 10 walleyes, 11 saugers, and 6 big perch. We had some nice sized fish. My brother-in-law and his brother kept 1 walleye, 17 saugers, and 12 huge perch. They were not very aggressive on Saturday. Most bites were on the bobber and not the jigging pole. The fish I saw were very tight to the bottom on the vexilar. There were not many vehicles out and about on Saturday. My brother's auger ran poorly but better than mine did last trip.

[MG - Fishin']

I was fishing out of one of Ballard's sleepers and the fishing the absolutely outstanding. We were only outside for a few minutes at a time loading/unloading the bomber, running around the house to the bathroom, and to grab the bottle of Jagermeister out of the snow. It was so cold the Jag. was like cough syrup after a while. I didn't think the weather impacted the fishing where we were a single bit. The best weekend by far for us. I'm just glad we didn't have any heater problems though.

[TeeDee]

MG,<BR>If you don't mind saying, where did Ballards have your sleeper located?<BR>TD

[MG - Fishin']

Tee-Dee, <P>The bomber driver said they had just moved the houses within the last week and not too many people had fished them since they moved them. They didn't say a whole lot on where they were on the lake, but he said they were about 8 miles out, just past Morris Point I believe. We were in about 34 feet of water too. Whenever I go up there I always stay in a sleeper and really don't pay much attention to tell you the truth. I know they'll try their best to put us on the fish and that they did. The other houses did really well last weekend too he said.

[Eyewitness]

Fished north of the Bayview houses about 12 miles out from Pine Island on Sat. Man was it cold!!! Managed to get set up prior to the wind coming up and then there was no way we were going to move. My heater could barely keep up in my Otter. The truck said 28 below at one point....The fishing was outstanding however. One 26", one 25", a few 21-22" probably 10-15 between 15-19" and lots of dinks. All in all about 80 between two of us. They were all over the water column. Did anyone else experience this? We were in 34 ft. of water and caught walleyes anywhere from 5' below the ice all the way down to the bottom. Biggest fish all came from the bottom though. Just opposite of what I've been experiencing all year out there. We also lost a few bigger ones and marked fish non stop from 10AM to 3PM. Anything glow white seemed to be the ticket, with glow red angel eyes a close second. Can't wait for this weekend. 40's on the big pond Friday thru Sun..... Oh yea, stuck my auger too. I got it out, but learned a valuable lesson. Clearing the hole of shavings prior to punching through is a big help. Won't make that mistake twice. Thought I was gonna sacrifice my auger to the fish Gods!

[huntnfish]

Glad to hear the fishing was good, MG. I will be staying in one of Ballards sleepers on the weekend of the 22nd. I hope we can have the same luck as you did. I haven't been up to LOW in about 15 years, so I hope we can get on some fish. Is there anything that I should bring that wasn't provided? E-mail me at [email protected]

[curt quesnell]

I forgot the most important thing....<P>Both days we had many fish suspended 8 to<BR>10 feet off the bottom and they were ready<BR>to bite......BUT they were dinks!!!!!!this <BR>was the first time I have seen small fish behave this way.<P>Glad to hear they were goin' off of Pine<BR>for you guys.<P>Curt Quesnell

[swamptiger]

Good weekend to prop my feet up in front of the fire and grab another Bud. Which is exactly what I did.<P>Walleyesnob; That's right, you've got the idea. Keep throwing them big perch back.

[Ya Hey Der]

I went up there on Saturday and boy was it cold. This was my very first time up on LOW and the first time I had to use my extension. Well to make a long story short, I drilled my first hole without a problem. I was drilling through my second hole and just as I broke through, the water rushed up and froze my blade in the hole with all the chippings. So, I tried to pull it free and broke the plastic handle on my Strikemaster. That really sucked because the drill was still stuck in the hole. I am not too sure about those plastic handles. I also learned to clean on the holes and as I drill through. Granted it was cold but one of the strikemast reps. told me that I didn't have anything to worry about. Well, somehow, I managed to get the auger out. I was sweating but also freezing. I wanted to fish a couple of other spots but that was it for us. We only caught 1 small sauger and missed a couple more. We drove out of Adrians and went out somewhere between 5-8 miles past that little island. It was an interesting trip to say the least. Oh by the way, do any of you guys know how to take care of frost bite on the finger tips??? My hands still hurt from the cold and this was 2 days ago. Good think I didn't stick my tongue on the metal poles in my house. :-)<BR>Keep on fishing.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by Ya Hey Der (edited 03-10-2003).]

[WalleyeSnob]

i was out this weekend at 16 mile and broken axle <BR>fishing was ok but nothing to write home about we ended up with one that was 22.5 inches and probably 15 jumbos biggest being around 1 lb and 3/4<BR>never realized what a pain they are to clean<BR>we will never again be keeping those <BR>we also kept probably 10 walleyes around 14-18 inches<BR>looking forward to getting back up this week on thursday<BR>hopefully the weather should help out

[widetrack]

Perch are as easy as pie to clean.<P>I skip the rounded rib bones though.<P>1. Slab the fillet off.<BR>2. Skin the side<BR>3. Carve the rib bones out.<P>Nice piece of meat, and you aren't missing much in the belly area under the ribs.<P>Electric knife works great on these.<P>Once you eat the perch, you may change your mind.

[shadrapla]

wow it were so ---- cold and we managed caught 95 fish we fished long point on friday and babler road on sat we fishing at anderson reef we keep 23 walleye and sauger we fished at 33 feet deep we use rattle buckshot(without trike(sp )) add fishing line about 7 inches with glow yellow or pink and another rod with bobber it work we got stuck on babler road sat night 2 time thank god there are very helpful people we suppsoe to going back there on sunday but we decided not worth to going there i knew resort will not plow road till wind dead so we went to home