First Ice Fishing Outing
We finally had a free day this weekend so Junior and I gathered up all of the fishing stuff and headed out for an afternoon of fishing on Lake Bemidji.
It took a little time to get everything sorted out and located, but the good news is that the auger started, there was propane left in the tank we use with the “Mr. Heater”, and there was enough juice left in one of the four Vexilar batteries. We got all the old line stripped off the reels, bought a few new jigs, loaded up on minnows and headed out to the lake. Unfortunatley, that was pretty much the end of the action for the afternoon.
We figured that we would take a shot at a little bar in the southeast part of the lake. There’s a little hump at the north end that comes up to about 10 feet. We pulled up on the north end of that hump and drilled a few holes until we were in about 20 feet. Our shelter is a two-person Fishtrap Voyager that sets up pretty quick. We poked a couple more holes in the ice, popped up the shelter and got the rods set up. It wasn’t too long before Junior had a perch on the line… nothing massive, but a hopeful sign. We sat and watched the Vexilar looking for the tell-tale signal at the bottom that would announce the arrival of another fish. On two occasions we actually did have visitors, but we couldn’t entice the fish to bite.
So our first outing of the season ended an hour or so after sunset with no walleye action to report. It was good to get out anyway and make sure all of the equipment was working properly. The dogs got to run around on the ice and take a long nap in the back of the shelter. Hopefully the next trek will include a few fish!
Hard to believe you have enough ice to have your truck out…Not here.
Keep after ‘em!
Looked to be better than 14 inches. Not much snow cover on the lake. The wind has removed most of it.