Short Weekend report

[Whopper Stopper]

Went up to Zipple on Friday with intentions of staying until Monday. If you are heading up there with your own equipment be prepared to deal with some heavy snow. I had chains for all tires, however I didn't need to put them on where we went. I did see a few people shoveling and pushing however, and vehicles getting jump started were fairly common with the -30 weather. We got set up about 2 pm and fished until dark. I was joined by my Wife and we had a very good time. I actually laughed at her because for the most part she was putting on a fishing clinic and I spent most of my time putting Minnows on for her. From the time we started until the time we hung it up at dark we had 12 keeper Walleyes and 6 Saugers. The biggest Walleye was 19" with the others just short of that. One side note I saw a Warden in Baudette on our way through and I asked him about eating fish out of my house and he said he had no problem with it, needless to say Friday night we had a fantastic fry. <BR>On Saturday things were a little slower. We picked up about 12 for the day that we put in the pail, I think we put back about 10 and had another good fry for lunch.We only caught one perch but it was a nice one. As far as baits went, it really didn't matter. Pink was very hot for awhile and then Chartreuse also paid off well. We had stopped for gas at the Conoco in Baudette and when we saw they also sold bait we got our shiners there. I asked for two scoops and the little old trooper that was scooping gave me four full scoops. I was glad I had a extra bucket in the truck because he actually gave me way to many. <BR>We had, as I said, planned on staying until today, however with the Weather report calling for more -30 weather accompanied with 25 mph winds and snow accumulations of up to 18 inches we decided the 300 miles of road we needed to take were long enough traveling 55 let alone 25 so we packed and headed back Saturday night. I would say the main thing to keep in mind is dealing with the deep snow. Most people just found a lower drift and blasted through them and continued on until their trucks started getting stuck. My house is pretty heavy so I had to use a little more subdued method. Anyway hope this helps in some way if you are on your way up there. I am planning on one more run first of the month, maybe staying just a little longer next time.<P> WS

[Doc Madison]

Did you use Shiners exclusively? If not, what was producing the most? Thanks for the report.

[Whopper Stopper]

All we had was Shiners.

[walleyehawk]

We were on LOW Thurday and Friday. Thursday we fished 5-6 miles north of Wheelers Point and Friday we fished out of Arnesons houses on Rocky point.<P>Thursday we took shiners and fatheads. Did not seem to make a difference overall. Friday we had left over shiners, fatheads and rosies-red fatheads. Again, no real advantage to shiners or rosies. There were times they seemed to prefer fatheads but I think we were wise to take all.<P>Overall we went home with 13 walleye/saugers each for the two days, with 8 whitefish and a three sumu perch.