Ending 2006 In Style

Battling a fierce cold for the last couple of days, I decided to deal with my sickness on the ice rather than on the couch.  I figured that I'm sick either way, I may as well be sick and doing something I love instead of being a pile on the sofa.  So, Dingy and myself left early yesterday morning for the big pond (aka: Mille Lacs).  With a great trip the first time up there this year, my hopes were extremely high going into the morning.  After a broken rod, a few cuss words from Dingy, objects being thrown (Dingy again) , and crossing a major ice heave, we were to our first spot and fishing for the day.  We had minimal results from our first few spots for the day, but stumbled onto some late in the morning and decided to make that our campsite for the rest of the day.  Unlike last time we were out, the fish were not concentrated on the bottom ledge of the reefs, instead they were roaming around on the tops of the flats.  This required only about 75 - 100 holes from Dingy's what seemed like 200lb ice auger, and a sore back the next day.  By drilling all of these holes, we were able to move from hole to hole finding active fish instead of waiting for them to come to us.  This is my favorite technique for catching many walleyes and we probably tripled our catch for the day by doing this. 

When the day was all said and done, we had in the neighborhood of 20 eye's, one broken rod, a few classic misses from Dingy, and many good laughs.  While the giants weren't smacking for us on this day, we still had action and brought home a nice meal for the table.

On a side note, I want to give a "shout out" to my cousins Matt and Bobby and their buddies who were up on the lake as well.  They were fishing a different area and struck gold, limiting out on eaters for the four of them, and throwing many large fish back up to 28".  Well done boys! 

Happy New Years to all and Fish On in 2007!