Cattin the Chain '11

[Borch]

Borch you can always eat the chicken livers MMMM deep fried

I'm thinking that I'll pass Gordie.

Tom really seemed to like them though.

[Shoot2Kill]

It's under Horseshoe. Except there are about 73 of those in MN. Try the one in Stearns Co

Either that or just drag the map around until you hit St Cloud and look for the big body of water.

Good Luck, let us know how you do.

Haha.

I found horseshoe but i cannot get it to show me the one in Stearns. I will try harder.

Can't wait to go out there...been reading this thread and the Cattin'10 thread non stop...have accomplished zero work in the past 2 days.

[CarpinMNRiver]

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showmap.html?mapid=B0334

[Rick G]

All I can say is the best bite of the year is going right now. Days with 30-50 fish are the norm. and tonight was no exception. If you do a bit of scouting and can land on the right school of fish it can be very good action during the daylight hours and down right fast at prime time and into the dark hours. During the day I was finding fish over 40+ ft of water suspending as far as 20ft off bottom with better numbers coming 3-5 ft off bottom. Around 4:30 I made the move up into 30ft and set up shop for the evening bite. My plan was to stay out till around 11 but I forgot to refill the propane so I was forced off by the cold a few hous early. Still finding 8-9 in of ice where I have been checking and the snow is starting to pack down and settle a little so getting around is'nt quite as tough. Im thinkin next week sometime I may drag the wheelhouse out there for the year so I can start spending some nights on the lake.

[JimBuck]

Nice report. So is the area near the meth hole all good for foot traffic? I'm planning on getting up there Saturday morning for the day with a good friend. I appreciate the reports guys, I'm in he cities so you guys really help out those who can't drive by the chain on the way home from work.

[TrapMan13]

Had a pretty good night tonight. Went out to a spot where not a single human track had been left yet. Ended up Icing 22 cats, 26 crappies, and 5 walleyes (most fish released, kept enough for a meal). The action was fast and furious till dark. Then everything started to shut off. (Using small crappie sized red moonglows with crappie minnows to ice all the fish. 26ft. Deep; all fish came out of same holes.)

[Genofish]

That was a good day of fishing. What area is everyone getting onto the lake? I am not very familer with the chain.

[Rick G]

What area is everyone getting onto the lake?

I see people getting on the lake south of the 22 bridge and by the winter access.There are a few other places to park around the lake if you are creative. Another great way to get prime first ice access points is to talk to the locals or the cabin owners and ask for permision to park on their property. I have been pretty fortunate to have met some nice cabin owners over the years and this is how I gain access to quite a few of my best spots.

[kemp13]

last time i've seen the meth hole out there is was really close to mouth of river, i spend all winter on the chain and drive over where the meth hole on the map is all year

[Fishing Buddy 6]

I am going to be out there tomorrow. I work later so I will be getting on the lake about dark.

[Shoot2Kill]

All I can say is the best bite of the year is going right now. Days with 30-50 fish are the norm. and tonight was no exception. If you do a bit of scouting and can land on the right school of fish it can be very good action during the daylight hours and down right fast at prime time and into the dark hours. During the day I was finding fish over 40+ ft of water suspending as far as 20ft off bottom with better numbers coming 3-5 ft off bottom. Around 4:30 I made the move up into 30ft and set up shop for the evening bite. My plan was to stay out till around 11 but I forgot to refill the propane so I was forced off by the cold a few hous early. Still finding 8-9 in of ice where I have been checking and the snow is starting to pack down and settle a little so getting around is'nt quite as tough. Im thinkin next week sometime I may drag the wheelhouse out there for the year so I can start spending some nights on the lake.

Why, why, why did I read this! I’m going out there today and this report will make it painful to endure the next 3 hours at work. Thanks for the report! Wow I can’t wait.

Sounds like I might be going solo – I have a big green fish house…if anyone is out there and sees it give me a knock, fishing with others is always more fun. My buddy might not be able to make it.

[DTro]

Yeah, thanks rfm.

You knew darn well it was only Wed when you posted that? You could at least wait until Fri. LOL

Pretty cool all the info shared here. I sometimes wonder if it was "Crappies on the Chain" or "Walleyes on the Chain" if it would be a posting ghost town.

[Shoot2Kill]

Dtro - email sent to your gmail, hope you don't mind.

[mrklean]

Pretty cool all the info shared here. I sometimes wonder if it was "Crappies on the Chain" or "Walleyes on the Chain" if it would be a posting ghost town.

haha it would be all negative posts nothing biting, only small fish etc cant wait to get to the chain this winter

[soft]

Have cops ever ticketed any one parked along hwy 22 by winter access in the past?, I am thinking going out but not sure where to park if cops don't want me to park there.

Thanks.

[Rick G]

I dont think you can legaly park along some sections of 22 but I have never heard of anyone getting cited for parking there. Well action was fair to good again today. I got on the lake around 1:30 but didnt get my first cat till 3. For the first hour and a half I found plenty of fish but they were lure shy. When I would get my spoon to the mass of fish they would all vanish. By 3 the fish slowly started to turn on and by 4:30 fishing was slow but steady with a fish every 15min or so and by 6 it was about one every 5min with lots and lots of missed fish. For me a glow green 1/16oz jb spoon was great while my brother was holding his own on the pink and white frostee. I noticed the fish were responding better to the freshly glowed luers vs. the ones that were left to sit so long the glow wore off. We also pulled a few bonus crappies ans small walleyes in the same area. There is starting to be a few more people on the lake each evening now and the new comunity hole had about 6-10 people out there tonight so lets hear some more reports.

[BrdHunter01]

Pretty cool all the info shared here. I sometimes wonder if it was "Crappies on the Chain" or "Walleyes on the Chain" if it would be a posting ghost town.

Thats spot on I know a lot of you guys like the cats, more power to you, I'm more a crappie/walleye guy so I'll just keep my mouth shut

[Shoot2Kill]

Busted my cherry out at the Meth Hole last night…first time out there. My buddy ended up being able to go and we got out there and had holes drilled by about 3:00….first 2 walleyes within 10 minutes and picked up 6 or 8 more before it got dark between the 2 of us, only one real keeper though. Set up the house on the most productive holes and patiently waited for the cats to start hammering…….well, they never hammered us but we did get about 10 cats between us before we pulled up shop at 7:00. Being rookies, I think we did pretty well for our first trip out, especially not having a locator…and considering we didn’t fall in the meth hole I consider it a success. Haha. Our biggest cat was 2-3 lbs, most were 1-2 lbs. We did see a couple guys pull in 2 really nice ones about 40 yards away.

Met a fellow FM’er….nice to meet you Clayton, thanks for stopping to say hi and give us the tips! How did you end up doing?

I was told by a buddy that they accessed the meth hole from the west short off Fruitwood Rd by the creek that flows in. After discussing with Dtro by email I had decided not to go in that way but when we got out there we couldn’t tell exactly where people were going in from 22 being new to the whole game, so we drove around to Fruitwood Rd just to check it out and saw a pretty heavy trail going out on the ice and figured it was safe if we just stayed on that trail. All was good for a couple hours….then right as it was getting dark we could hear someone yelling from the shore….look out and there is the local Sherriff with his lights on yelling that our trucks would be towed if we didn’t come and get them. So another guy and I ran off the lake and had a nice chat with the Sherriff about where we could and could not park. Evidently you CAN park on the W side of the N/S road there, but not on the E side where we were parked…even though parking on the E side takes up less roadway IMO. The other issue he had was that we actually trespassed to get access to the lake there by going over the edge of someones property….duh….we were just following the trail and didn’t think about it. The creek that flows in there was not frozen yet so later in the year if it freezes you should be able to get on there and not have any issues IF you park on the W side of the road. The Sherriff ended up being really cool about all of it and just had us move our trucks over to 22. SO….just an FYI for people.

Crazy first time out…fish and cops!

[JimBuck]

Nice report S2K. Sounds like a pretty successful first outing! Were you marking much during the day or were they just tight lipped? I'm heading out that way tomorrow morning hopefully if we don't get whacked to bad by this storm.

[DTro]

No flasher?? Yeah you did really well then IMO. Those cats (especially when active) will be suspended like crappies and you can pick up bunches of them by sniping them up in the water column, or even when not active we like to let them tell us where they are by using the flasher and set out bait just above the school. Sometimes this is 6ft off the bottom, sometimes right on the bottom.

I've never parked over on the West side there. That community hole has never been kind to foot traffic and I would encourange anybody heading up there to respect the local road traffic including "No Parking" signs and for sure the authorities.

Sounds like you ran into a decent fellow having a good day, I've heard of some tickets being handed out too in the past few years.

Once the ice firms up and people can park on the lake, things are much easier.

The snow has me re-thinking my weekend plans....

[Rick G]

Ya if we get dumped on like the wheather man said its going to be tough getting around on the lake again for awhile. I am not looking forward to the -10 temprature for the weekend either. S2k you guys did pretty good for no flasher. I usaly have to look for where the best concentrations of fish are before I set up.

[Shoot2Kill]

No flasher?? Yeah you did really well then IMO. Those cats (especially when active) will be suspended like crappies and you can pick up bunches of them by sniping them up in the water column, or even when not active we like to let them tell us where they are by using the flasher and set out bait just above the school. Sometimes this is 6ft off the bottom, sometimes right on the bottom.

I've never parked over on the West side there. That community hole has never been kind to foot traffic and I would encourange anybody heading up there to respect the local road traffic including "No Parking" signs and for sure the authorities.

Sounds like you ran into a decent fellow having a good day, I've heard of some tickets being handed out too in the past few years.

Once the ice firms up and people can park on the lake, things are much easier.

The snow has me re-thinking my weekend plans....

The Flasher was the only thing missing on the equipment I was given. I’m watching online daily for a deal and will hopefully have one shortly. We watched Clayton using his and wow…whole different ball game!

The funny thing though is that before dark we were picking up the walleyes pretty regularly while we watched everyone staring at their flasher not catching fish. Luck? Probably…but I dropped my bait down and it got bit so we stuck to it. Fished about 4 feet off the bottom most of the time…..glow red frostee jigs.

Good point on respecting that W side of the lake. I’ll go in from 22 from here on out now that I know where to go in at. We were just playing lost sheep and following the tracks.

[Rick G]

S2k Fruitwood rd is kind of the forbidin fruit of parking around that area.It was parked on and driven on later in the winter heavly a couple years back and the folks who live on that end of the lake got fed up with all the cars parked on the rd. and the trash that was left behind. Its too bad it had to happen like this because that is a good deal closer than parking on 22 and walking across the lake. Today was a good bit slower than it has been in the last week for me. We found the fish out deeper 34ft and they were anywhere from 20ft down under the transducer all the way to the bottom with most fish coming in 2-4ft off bottom. We ended up with around 30 or so fish in total with all but a couple being on the smaller side. Lots of people on the ice tonight I think there were more than a dozen vehicals along 22 . I am going to try and make it out tomorow morning or early afternoon and give it another go before it gets too nasty out.

[duckslayer27]

Here is the weather report. We saw about 6" or less of snow, but with big winds it will be rough going on the lakes. Made it out last night and the cats gave us a great afternoon of long fights. 3 of us iced 34 cats but what impressed me the most was the average size being over 20" with a 27" and 2 26" kickers. Small buckshot (pink) jig was the ticket last night (very light bite, a spring bobber was a must). Fished 18' of water on a small inside turn with a large shallow flat near by. We only had 4" of solid ice with 2" of frozen slush.

[Rick G]

I just got in from doing a bit of looking around horseshoe and cedar island and it looks like the ice is still in decent shape. I did find some slush and a little water under the snow in one of the places I was at on Cedar. There is a lot of snow out there now and getting around without a sled is going to be tough for a while I think. Looks like we got from 6-8 in of fresh stuff on the lake with some nice big drifts along the shorelines .

[DTro]

Thanks for the update! I tried my best to get up there yesterday, but it literally took me most of the day to move the 2 ft of snow in my driveway. By the time I was done, not only was it getting late, my aching muscles said, "are you kidding me?" when I thought about going fishing.

So sled is questionable right now? Still only walking out?

[Rick G]

Sled is about only option right now but a guy could still walk out if he was in good enough shape I guess Time to break a new trail out to the spot NOT FUN

[so haaad]

Riverfishmiss, maybe you should snowblow a trail for us!

[Rick G]

Riverfishmiss, maybe you should snowblow a trail for us!

I will get right on that lol.

[OnAFly]

I've been sitting at work reading through this thread. Now all I can think of is ice fishing...great

I guess I'll just spend the rest of the day online scouting any lakes near me that have fishable populations of cats in them I might have to make a night of it tomorrow!