Had a three day weekend so Jill and I headed for the BIL/SIL's lake house in SE MI. They had about an inch of snow on top of 9" of clear, hard ice. We arrived too late on Fri. night to fish, but it didn't keep us from taking the spud out to check the ice.
Jill and I got up Sat. morning and headed for Knutson's Bait shop in Brooklyn, MI and picked up some bait and a couple of other needed items including a couple of extra bottles of propane. Good thing we did, as temps were in the single digits Sat. and Sun. and below zero at night.
Stopped by Devil's Lake near Addison, MI and took this picture:
Back at the lake house, we got our Arctic Armor and boots on, unloaded the Yukon from the Suburban and headed out. We headed for a spot that we had caught crappie on a consistent basis during the summer and set up in 14 FOW. Had a few follows, but no bites, so I started "Ice Trolling". Got in 11 FOW and started marking fish consistently. Dropped a Jiggin' Rap down the hole and it was on. Hollered at Jill to let her know whatever it was was rippin' drag. She (still in the shanty) hollered back that she had one on and it too was rippin drag. Here is the result. Difficult to take self portraits.
A couple of 15-17" LMB's:
Jill went back in the shanty and I went back to my 11' hole. Big 'Ole red mark on the bottom, so I dropped the Jiggin' Rap back down and WHAM!! Rippin' drag again, and I about wet myself when I saw it's head come through the hole.
It didn't take Jill long after taking these pictures to pack the shanty and move it to where I was while I drilled another hole. Picked up a few gills and crappie. Mike and I didn't come off of the ice until 3AM on Sunday morning.
Got back out about 11 Sunday morning and picked up a few more decent crappie.
A kid that lives on the lake helped us go "Ice Trolling" and he picked up this decent LMB:
Mike picked up this real nice Crappie Sun. afternoon. Didn't measure it but guess it was 14" or better.
Temps started rising Sunday evening and the bite shut down. Nothing but dink gills or follows with no takers until Jill connected with a SLAB Crappie about 4:30 Monday afternoon. It came unbuttoned just as I reached for it at the hole, but it had to be 16" or better.
Took this picture of a Star of David shaped snowflake that fell on Mike's sleeve on Monday morning. The picture doesn't do it justice.
It snowed most all day Monday and continued to warm up. I guess the pressure change turned them off. We started drilling holes out into 30+ FOW but never could find any suspended crappie or bottom hugging walleye. Here are some pictures of the lake while it was snowing.
All in all a great weekend. Stayed warm and dry in the Yukon, but went through seven bottles of propane. Ice grew 2" while we were there.
Had some locals come in and set up within 10' of us on Sat. night. Word got around quick about that walleye. Same thing on Sunday. Oh well, they didn't catch much. :-)
Looking forward to getting up there again, but with my schedule, it's probably going to be the third weekend in Feb. before we have an open weekend. Three tourneys over the next three weekends, and a slim chance of heading to Erie sometime in there will keep us busy. It'll be over before we know it!!
-Jeff & Jill
