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Crickschop04's Monster Northern


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I had gone out with the idea that I was going to try and catch a pike so I grabbed the Abu baitcaster and "pool cue" and threw on a perch flavored chubby darter. Drilled 5 holes and fished them all for about 5 minutes apiece, cause I had heard that if there is pike in the area that they will come investigate, but no luck. Then I laid down the big rod for the pannie rod and sat about for an hour and fished with "smallieobsession" who just happened to be there too. All of a sudden "smallie" says I just marked something really big" so I grabbed the big stick and jigged for about 2 sec. and I could see it come off the bottom and it hit the chubby darter right away. Good fight, had "smallie" snap a couple of pics, and down the hole. She was in good shape when I let her go. The blood was actually mine as the second time I got her to the hole I wasn't going to risk not landing her. All we had was a stick to measure w/ but we figured about 34", and estimated about 15 lbs. She was a fatty! One of my goals for the season was to land a pike on the reel through the ice so I was pretty pumped up.

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Nice fish, I would sure love to get hooked up with one of those toothy critters through the ice some time, guess at this point it will have to wait until next winter.

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How did he draw blood? Is it from grabbing behind the gills when he got to the top of the hole, or did he get a bite in?

I was panfishing up in Apple Valley and had about a 5 pounder on and couldn't figure out how I was going to get it out without him locking on to me, and wasn't sure if the gills would draw blood or not. Luckily the 2lbs test didn't last long.

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Matti, that looks kinda small for a 15 pounder. Maybe it is the just the background that makes it look that way... Ha ha!

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Smallie here, it was fun to see that sucker come through the hole. Like Cricks said, I was using my x67c in graph mode and all of a sudden the screen just lit up about 4ft above the bottom and clearly it was something big becuase it just filled the screen. No sooner did I say "Something big just went by..." and next thing I know I hear Cricks say "got it"...he did a nice job playing him out till he could get him turned up the whole an bamm....there's a nice gator laying on the ice. Couple quick pics and back down the hole she went. Nice Job Cricks and good to meet ya. See ya round.

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