Made my annual trip up to Island Falls Maine to fish in the small local derby thats run by Jerry's Supamahket. No big prizes, just good fishing with good folks and family. Last year they were giving out ring dings as door prizes…..this year it was hostess fruit cakes
Yea…..my kinda derby!
Left early friday morning, stopped at my brothers house to pick him up and 300 + miles later we pulled into The Birches Campground and unloaded all our junk at our cabin and ate dinner while re-rigging traps and watching Gold Rush. Woke up the next morning to a toasty -23 below zero, 1 of our 3 sleds was down for the count, ice in the fuel pump.
After a 5 mile long ride we arrived at our traditional family fishing spot, my eyelashes felt kinda funny after the ride…..
No I'm not grey…..I'm only 33…..thats freaking frosted
After D-icing my face my brother and I ran out two trap lines about .5 mile long. After drilling our 2nd hole the augers gas line ruptured….no problem we'll just grab my uncles auger…..a relic of a model 30 that barely runs on a good day…..and today WASN'T a good day. So it was hand augers all around! Me and my brother took turns drilling the remaining holes thru 24 inches of ice with my backup eskimo with an offset handle, and then we drilled my fathers holes….and my uncles…….
The whole time we are getting flags as well, mostly just small salmon and jack smelts. After a bit we set up camp and ate some moose burgers and back straps from my fathers deer.
Didn't take too many pictures of fish because it was so cold, mostly just cut them off at the hole without even taking them out of the water. Went thru 6 dozen smelts and caught a bunch of fish. My brother did manage to get one nice one, the only salmon we kept.
21.5 inches and 3.06 pounds….worthy of the board hopefully.
Towards dark the wind started to pickup, the snow started and it got right brutal out, never made it past 3 degrees all day. Went to pull my traps and noticed the trip was broken and after pulling the tip-up out all that was left was a knot tied on the spool……great…. So after spending a good 15 minuted winding it up by hand I ended up with another brook trout, about 15 inches or so.
After the ride back to camp with the wind at our backs(which was nice!) me and my brother took a ride into Jerry's with our fish to check out the board. His salmon was good enough to take first(for now)
His moment of GLORY!!!!!
Also noticed the only brook trout registered was small .98 pounder so I went back out side and grabbed the last fish of the day I caught and into first I went…with a 1.02 pounder no less.
In the end I somehow managed to keep first and my brother was knocked down to second by the end. 100 bucks for me, 50 for my bro……unfortunately no fruit pies were won though
Till next year
