A Quick Reminder! They Must Be Released...

I am definitely not trying to put anybody down here or say anything bad about anybody.  I just wanted to give a friendly reminder that muskie season is closed in Minnesota.  The DNR changed their rules this fall to close the season on the 15th of December.  After this season they plan on closing the season on the 1st of December each year.  I have been getting many emails from different people regarding some of those toothy critters lately.  While it is awesome to pull one of them through the ice, they are illegal to keep.  You can take a picture of them, but then they must be released.  Unfortunately not everybody has released their muskies this winter, and from the good sources that I know, the DNR is not giving any slack on this new rule, and fines have been issued.  This is just an informative journal entry to help out anybody on the ice this winter and in coming winters.  Good luck out there, and if you are fortunate enough to catch a muskie through the ice, I would love to see the pics.  Thanks for all the emails everybody, they just might have saved a few of our readers from paying a very large fine.  Until next time, Keep on Livin That Dream!

Feed My Starving Children

Ok, so I know this has absolutely nothing to do with fishing.  However my journal entries don't always revolve around my guide services, and sometimes I think it is important to share other great stories that I get to experience.  Last night my sister and I organized a group of 20 friends to join us to help volunteer for a local organization called "Feed My Starving Children."  I cannot say enough about how great of an experience this is for everybody that attends.  To sum it up, you volunteer about an hour and a half of your time and you package up bags of rice, powders and minerals to feed starving families across the entire world.  They have such a sweet system set up for the volunteers that come in, and you get to enjoy laughs and good times with friends while supporting a great cause.  In our short time of helping, it is amazing to think that we packaged up enough food to make over 12,000 meals for starving families.  We had a great time last night, and now 36 children will have a meal for the next full year because of what we did to help.  This is not the first time we have volunteered for this organization and it certainly will not be the last.  If you would like to learn more about this opportunity to help, you can go to their website which is www.fmsc.org and you will learn much more than I can tell.  Or, you can ask me more about this neat activity and I will fill you in.  Not exactly fish pictures, but sometimes this is a better way to Live The Dream!  I highly recommend taking a night off the water to make a huge difference in the lives of many.

Oh yeah, after our great night, Whorl and I topped it off by heading out to the ice shack to see if we could get a nibble or two in our sleep.  As you can see from Whorls picture, it was the right decision.  Thanks again everybody!  That was a great night, and that is what I call "Livin The Dream!"

Lets Try This Again...

About a week and a half ago Kevin and his buddy Mike came out to the house in hopes of getting in on the walleye action that we have been succeeding at lately.  While they did boat a few, the larger ones didn't take the baits until just after they left.  After having a great time and seeing the results just after they left the house, they decided to try their luck again last night.  While we spent nearly the entire evening playing games and cooking up nearly everything that the grocery store has to offer, we just couldn't get the darn fish to cooperate.  The boys stayed until 11:00 with no fish, and just as they were walking out the door a rattle dinged.  Dusty and I thought that Mike had bumped it on his way out of the house, but sure enough, the bobber was down.  After a quick best  2 out of 3 on Rock, Paper, Scissors, Mike was the victor and jumped in to do battle with this fat willie.  Finally!  The curse that Kevin always brings with him was broken!  Talk about waiting til the last minute.  What a way to end the night guys!

It is about time this cold snap comes to an end.  With the temps dropping well below zero for nearly a week now, the little bit of fishing that I have done has been pretty tough.  The high barometer and the ungodly noise from all the ice cracking had given the fish lock-jaw.  I think this warmer weather that is approaching will hopefully get the fish back into eat mode.  Although it has been tougher with the recent conditions, the fish that we have been catching are still very nice, and it has been rare to catch anything under 2 pounds.  The second picture shows just how healthy the fish have been that have been coming in da boat lately.  Even for an 18 incher, it still looks like he has a football in his belly.  I snapped this picture this morning of one that woke me from my sleep.  There is no better alarm clock than a 2 pound walleye ringing a bell.  That's what I call "Livin The Dream."

Brrrrrrr!!!!

Holy Connolly is it cold out there!  Brrrr!  Anyway's, last night we kept it rolling yet again, however it was more of a night of missed opportunities than a night of taking photos.  The spot that we are currently working doesn't seem to have tons of fish on it, however when you catch em, they all seem to be rather large.  We should have had a quite a few last night, but had just one of those nights that they seemed to always get off.  The largest one last night woke me up at about 3:00 am, and I have to chuckle at my sleepy look every time I post pictures of the middle of the night fish that I catch.   This picture is of a roughly 4.5 to 5 pounder that had Whorl running circles around the house as it kept stealing the minnows off of the rattle reels.  He even battled it for about 5 feet and then lost it.  I know this, because after all of his shinanigans,  I finally got off of my bunk for the next rattle, and caught this guy with a mouth full of his minnows.  Haha, thanks for missin em buddy!

 

This morning left me with the impression that I am going to be waiting a couple of days before I venture out again.  After moving 3 more fish houses onto new spots today in that ungodly cold wind, I feel that I am going to take a break for the weekend and fish next week once it starts warming a bit.  Hopefully the boys in those houses catch a few this weekend, and they get me some pictures of their results.  I will keep you posted.  We also had our third morning in a row of having deer running by our fish house.  I got some photos of these 4 as they came prancing by us.  What the heck are they running across the ice for anyway???  There isn't even any woods in the area!  Weird, but cool.  I guess I will consider that "Livin The Dream!"

I Think I Have A Nibble...

Although my ice fishing season started out by me not really doing a whole lot of fishing, lately I have been taking advantage of a pretty good pattern out on Tonka, and my rewards have been great.  Last night was yet another night for my digital camera to get a work out.  I also boated my largest walleye of this ice season.  A very nice eye that I would put somewhere in the 8 pound category.  A true beauty any where that is still swimming for us to catch another day.  It came in during one of our card games and while I usually just use the rattle reels to catch em, this time I had a jig line down.  I just happened to look at my vexilar and see the massive signal covering my bait.  I picked up the rod, jigged it twice and the battle was on.  Unlike Lil Dingy's eye from a couple of nights earlier, this guy didn't exactly come flying up the 8 inch hole, and when they get that size, it is usually a tough time fitting them perfectly in the hole.  Nonetheless, I got a picture of the fatty, and high fives were shared by us all.

The approach that has really been putting all of the fish on the ice for us this season is very simple.  Move the house, fish, move the house, fish, move the house, fish, and then move again.  I feel like all I have been doing is moving the fish house from spot to spot, but it is making all the difference in the world.  Like I said before, there are literally thousands of spots on Tonka to try, and the best way to stay on fish is to stay in a spot no more than one night.  For whatever reason, there seems to be only a few fish on each spot.  Once you catch those fish, it's time to find new ones, because they don't seem to come back onto a spot that has been hit.  If I show up at a spot that already has holes on it, I simply move to another one.  I guess if I have seen holes there I feel that somebody already put hooks into the guys calling that spot home.  I don't know why Tonka's rock piles don't replenish themselves with new fish, but it seems like you only get one or two nights on a spot for the year.  Either way, there are so many spots out there that if you can be mobile, you will catch your fish and many of them are very large. 

You can see from this pic that we have really been spoiling ourselves out on the ice with Dusty's new shack.  Last night we had a gourmet meal of Lasagna courtesy of Hennen.  Thanks Matt, Bails and Dusty Bottoms for yet another night on the water to remember, and to our sponsors "Sunny D" and "Michelob Golden Draft Light" for making this night possible (hahaha...Just Kidding).  That's what I call "Livin The Dream!"