All in all, it was a good season for us. Here are some of our highlights.
1. Found some crappies this year, and managed two very good days with 37 keepers one day and 44 the other day between two of us. That was some fun fishing.
2. Caught a 5#+ plus smallmouth. Beautiful fish.
3. Ran into some hog perch on a new spot (for us) on outer Mallets Bay. My son got Master Angler recognition for his 13 incher. We'll be back there next year.
4. Had a decent trip with my son and two of his buddies on Keelers. His friends don't get a chance to ice fish unless we take them, and it was good to see the three of them chasing flags all day and each of them ending up with at least one pike in the 30", 7 pound plus range. They had a blast, and I had fun watching them.
5. Fished Horseshoe Shoal in Isle LaMotte for the first time. Lost a giant something, I assume a laker, that took us into the rocks and we couldn't move him off bottom. We'd like to explore that area more next year.
6. Managed some nice pike this year between 7 and 11 pounds, but no giants.The pike bite was slower than average for us for sure. Some of our go to spots just didn't produce this year. The one positive was that the vast majority of the bigger pike we caught were pretty clean, with no noticable lamprey scars.
7. Had a couple of 5 or more species days, with crappies, bluegills, seeds, yellow perch, white perch, pike, bass, and pickerel in the mix. Gotta love Champlain for the variety.
8. Finally tried Chittenden reservoir for eye's and my son iced his first; a legal one at that.
9. Realized that it's time the wheeler got a tune up. Very nearly ended up stranded with two boys and all of the gear out on Horsehoe Shoal. The trip back was exciting to say the least, but we made it. On the flip side, we had a lot of fun with the wheeler this year and on our last outing I pulled five of us off the ice with a trailer and all of our gear in one trip. Got some smiles from fellow fisherman as we drove by.
10. Ended the season with about 3 hours on Monkton Pond, after a busted trip to southern Champlain. With only 4 tips ups we caught and released a 7#+ pike, a 5# bass and a smaller one in about an hour, all on bluegills or 'seeds that we had jigged up. 55 degrees, sunny, and no wind. I can't think of a better way to close out the year.
If I had a goal for next year it would be...you guessed it...night smelt fishing with Bigwiggle. We'll be there wiggleman, and I'll be breaking out the old plastic jig sticks with chrome flashers and tandem hooks too.
See you guys next season, or maybe on the water this summer. Tight lines!
