Two weekends ago Jason and I set out on our first 24 hour ice fishing trip! We headed down to Fish Lake with the intent to fish all night long and all the next day. We got to Fish Lake around 2100 hours or so and set out to find our spot on the lake for the night. The ice was clear and had cracks all over. We drilled test holes as we went further and further onto the ice but it was still pretty scary. We finally found a spot with about 5 inches of ice in about 15-20 ft of water.
It didn't take long before Jason and I caught our first fish. Jason's fish was a perch, I caught a rainbow trout.
The fishing slowed down around 0100 hours so Jason and I decided to take a quick nap. Jason linked two beach chairs together to make a cot then he climbed in a sleeping bag. I used a zero gravity chair as well as three blankets.
After trying to take a nap for about an hour or so, we finally realized we were not going to be able to sleep because we had fish on our minds and the ice kept making crazy cracking noises! So we did what any other crazy fisherman would do and continued to fish! To my surprise, the fish continued to bite our bait. I even caught my very first Splake Trout! A splake is a mix between a Lake Trout and a Brook Trout. I caught the splake around 0300 hours on a small pink ice fly.
Jason got in on the hungry fish as well. He caught some trout and perch.
A nice rainbow that was caught in the dark!
By sunrise, Jason and I had each caught around 12-15 fish. My fish were all rainbows and one splake. Jason's fish were a mix between rainbows and perch. As the sun started to come out, so did the many fisherman. It just so happened the Saturday we were there was a perch tournament. The perch tournament ended up bringing over 1700 fisherman to the lake according to the Division of Wildlife.
Fisherman started setting up tents and drilling ice holes all over the lake.
By 0900 hours, Jason and I decided to move to deeper water to get away from the crowds. We also wanted to target monster lake trout. The spot we picked had about 8 inches of ice and was in 89 ft of water. We hadn't even set up the fishing tent before Jason and I each caught a couple fish. Jason even caught a double (A two hook set up on one pole with a fish on each hook).
We got everything all set up and found the rainbow trout sweet spot. All you had to do was drop your bait to about 20-25 ft and you were sure to get a bite! For me the lucky lure was a pink paddle bug.
We found this new spot had much bigger fish. The fishing stayed red hot as we caught fish after fish.
Although I wasn't having any luck with the monster lake trout, I enjoyed catching plenty of good looking rainbows!
When I reeled in this fish, I discovered a larger fish tried to eat this 15 inch rainbow while it was being reeled in! As soon as I got this fish on the ice, I noticed it's stomach and guts were hanging out. It also started spewing fish eggs all over the place. As I looked closer at the fish, I noticed two sets of teeth marks as if the fish clamped down not once, but twice! If only I could have caught the larger fish as well!
We decided to finally clean up around 1600 hours. We finished with over a hundred fish! I caught 51 fish, one was a splake and the rest were rainbows. Jason caught 53 fish, roughly 15 were perch and the rest were rainbows. The crazy part was we probably missed around a hundred fish or more! All of the fish we caught were properly released back into the lake except for the perch, they went home for Jason's dinner!
Jason and I had an awesome time fishing all night and the next day! We decided we are going to make this a yearly tradition!
JOE'S TIP OF THE DAY
For many seasoned fisherman, one of the most annoying things other fisherman can do, is set up their fishing tent right next to other people's tents. As Jason's facial expression indicates, we were bugged because some people set up this huge tent about 10 feet away from our tent. Out of all the spots on the lake, they had to pick a spot that was right next to ours, uncool.
Then to make things worse, a group of about 6 people set up on the other side of our tent not more than 15 feet away! So a little advise to those of you who are new to fishing, please give other fisherman their space!
