Louise treated us good

[iced]

Salmon man and I went to Louise and lucked into some nice lakers both mine where caught on the doc spoon and salmon man caught a 30+ in BB on the spoon as well. My rods and reels did not do so good after the ride to Crosswinds, of the four rods that I took this week end only two worked. The one that caught the big fish only had six LBS line on it. The second fish I snagged in the back fin and it pulled like a freight train almost spooled me. all the fish came from 50 feet of water  

[alaskaruss1]

Nice fish, thanks for sharing the photos. How cold was it while you were there ?

[iced]

I think it was around -20 just cold enough to keep your feet from warming up and your hands froze after you catch fish. I got one of the mr heaters that was on sale at lows but could not get it to work dont know why other than that there was dust clogging it. when i got home it worked after playing with it but it had a yellow flame for the pilot light for a while now it starts fine. the moon set and sun set where nice 

[Dirtofak]

Nice fish. We were out there too. We tried 4-30 foot dropoffs. No luck. Coldest temp seen was -9. Cabin would only got up to 50 degrees.... needs more insulation installed.

[iced]

We had no way to tell the temp this time. it was just a guess but i would have thought that it was colder then -9 

[Dirtofak]

I know it was cold. Last trip we got the cabin up to 60 pretty quick. My Hot Damn was frozen solid..... dang the bad luck. Generator quit at 3AM... buddy on CPAP machine..... he started snoring like a beatch.... snowmachine didn't want to start first attempt either. Did you see the ice crystal rainbow? It was cool. No northern lights, but a HUGE moon. I am looking for a good way to get my gear out in one piece too. Lots of sugar snow made its way into everything off of the back of the machines. Watch out for overflow past Larsen fairly close to the bluffs.

[oletimer]

Looks coooldabible. Beautiful place with some beautiful fish. You guys are as tuff as they get up there.
Someday I will get to visit the last frontier.

[akdube]

Boy you fellas are quite the laker slayers. Ever find any whitefish? You guys using sonar or just the depth is important?

[Salmonman]

Reading the bathymetric maps helps, along with figuring out what depth they are at during certain times of the year. I would imagine most will be deep for the next month or two. Then shallow up as spring gets closer. Old Doctor Dave is pretty partial to a paticular lure.
No whitefish. I have a guy in the great lakes are that will sell whole, gutted or fillets of whitefish for 4.50 pound. Not to bad until you add in shipping. A 25 pound box with 2nd day shipping would run $200 plus dollars.

[Dirtofak]

We had no way to tell the temp this time. it was just a guess but i would have thought that it was colder then -9 

About 4:30 Saturday. Did you feel the temp go down maybe 15 degrees in just a couple minutes? That in itself made it feel super cold. We were researching some spots that I felt had potential. According to Salmonman, we were pretty close, just too shallow. I also heard 20-30 foot flats were good this weekend.

Mike

[iced]

Sonar is on the wish list along with tuns of other things. Like Salmon man said we read the maps find shore structure that looks good then start drilling holes. If we don't get a hit or we dont think that it is deep enough we move out fifty yards and do it once more.  I think that water temp is more important than depth witch is why I wish we had sonar. This time of year you have to fish deeper to find the right temp water that they feed at Other than white fish I have only seen one laker caught on bait all the other where caught jigging. If it was -9 that was one cold -9 felt more like 15 or 20 below. The ice bow was cool wished I could have got a photo

[Dirtofak]

iced,
Best pic that I got of it.



Mike

[iced]

that is cool, literally!

[akdube]

Iced I see you had an automatic fisherman that red thing in the fish photo. How does that work for you? I got one but never rigged it up. Thanks. Boy that one photo with the hill in the back ground at sun set is awesome.

[iced]

The automatic fisherman is Salmon mans he seems to like it. Last trip to Louise he caught a 15 pound laker from it on the last bit of white fish we had

[JediMasterSalmonSlayer]

Wow..lots of nice photos...SUPER nice fish there up front! I am not worthy.....I am not worthy....thanks for posting!

[shoedawg]

Great looking fish guys.  My buddy just bought him a sonar last week.  Hoping to use it on Sat for Burbut on Big Lake.  I think he got a Vexilar....not sure though.  Theres a good tip about flashing in Feb's edition of Field and Stream about finding fish using a "football field" and "tennis court" sized areas while on the ice using a finder.

[Akhardwater]

Hey great fish guys, your makin my jiggin finger twitch.  Hopin to make it up there the second week of march and try my hand at those pigs.

[Dirtofak]

March, April and early May!!!! Then 2-3 weeks off and it starts the soft water season!!!

[Salmonman]

I am headed out for another day trip on saturday. Anyone else headed out? I will be in the usual locations and they really are no secrets. If you see two guys riding tandem on a Red Polaris Assault pulling a otter sled flailing about behind that will be us. I have a couple of bays and points I would like to try but I want to get my friend hooked on laker fishing so I will stick to the tried and true. Anyone have a whitefish they can spare? Good luck, don't go small with your reels if you are new to laker fishing. I big laker can peel 50 yards of line off without stopping. And they can stop and go 2 or 3 times. I think the lighter monofilament lines attract more fish and big ones, but you have to know how to set your drag and be careful of the ice around the hole. 10 pound ice line does the trick.

[Fishin Fireman]

If you see two guys riding tandem on a Red Polaris Assault pulling a otter sled flailing about behind that will be us.

That's almost like a scene from Dumb and dumber...That would make a funny video! Jedi could film it for you too!


Well nice fish and great pix of the scenery you guys!

stay safe and tight lines!


FF

[Salmonman]

Another good weekend

[Dirtofak]

Sweet fish.... Great colors on him too!

Mike

[Barleydog]

Sweet photos Iced!!!  Those are some really nice lakers you took...  Keep up the good work for sure!   Great stories too.

[iced]

Man Salmon man, those fish had awesome size and marks I cant go this weekend but next weekend I don't care if i have to ski  to there at -20 ill be there!!!! 

[Dirtofak]

Look at the right column...... Best on Sunday.

Guys, let me know if the times correspond with your catches.

Mike

[Barleydog]

Yeah, Ditto to you too Salmonman!  Fine looking lakers you hooked into.

[iced]

We had to sit on Louise for a long time and drill her in lots of spots to talker her into being nice last weekend. After we sweet talked her she gave up some nice fish along with these we also caught 3 BB over 14 lbs. The 2 big lakers came from less then 15 feet of water. I was thinking that the warm weather this year has the lake trout out of there normal water depth for this time of year, shouldn't they be in 60 to 80 feet

[Dirtofak]

Great fish! According to the info that I have been reading. The water under the ice should all be nearly the same temperature right now. Right around 39 degrees. I would center in on food, oxygen and security. Of course, anything that could make a certain area of the lake a bit warmer than the rest could be productive. I may be wrong...

Mike

[LastCast69]

Couldn't imagine better scenery to fish in. Also those are monsters. I see Alaska in my future...