Best Day Ice Fishing

[JMailbox8]

I had my best day ever on the ice on opening day today jigging for lakers on Lake Caspian. I arrived at the boat launch at 4:45am to attempt to catch some smelt for bait, but was unsuccessful. At 5:30am I headed out to my favorite spot and met up with my buddy fishhardwater2. I also got a chance to meet Perch Bait and Crayfish2, who happened to be fishing next to us. I landed my first laker of the day in darkness at 6:15am - a 21 inch keeper. My second bite of the day was right at sunrise and I instantly knew it was a big one - my line did a lot more stretching than its head did turning. Just seconds into the fight, it was over with the fish getting away and me cursing on the ice. By around noon I landed 8 lakers with the last one being legal, though I released it in hopes of catching and keeping a bigger one. At this time I decided to move around the lake in search of some new spots. After missing a bunch of small lakers, I decided to move at 2:30pm back to where I had started, and it turned out to be a good decision. At around 3:30-3:45pm, I found my redemption for the big one I had missed that morning and found myself hooked onto a monster. This time the hookset was deep and its fate was sealed. As I saw it come up to the hole, I seriously questioned if my 7 inch was was going to be big enough. It took 3 nervous tries to get the the fish's nose into the hole, and I was able to quickly grab behind the gills and pull the beast out. The laker measured just a hair under 40 inches. I couldn't believe it. This is by far the biggest freshwater fish I have ever caught. And the funny thing is, all 9 of the lakers I landed came out of the same hole. I made sure to mark the GPS coordinates before I left. Special thanks to fishhardwater2 for the bait and Smelt Rite and also to Perch Bait and Crayfish2 for snapping some pictures for me as my camera was dead. It was a pleasure fishing with you guys. I did end up releasing the fish to be caught another day. Can't wait for my next trip up there.

[thefishingweatherman]

Dang! Nice job! That thing is a beast! Looks kinda skinny though. Often when they look like that it's because they have a rubber bait stuck in their stomach. It stunts their growth. If that was the case with this one, imagine how fat it would be without it! Either way, NICE FISH. Maybe I'll see you out there today.

[fishingidjit]

Nice laker,sounds like a good day !

[stimpyNEK]

Awesome fish and story to go with it

[FishinDJ]

So bummed I couldn't make it up there this weekend. Keep me posted on your next venture north! 

[perch bait]

That certainly was an amazing day of fishing! When I heard you yell to my Dad and I, I looked out of our shanty window just in time to see you pull the laker onto the ice. My initial thoughts were that it was a nice laker, but as I started walking over it just kept on getting bigger and bigger until I finally was standing next to the biggest freshwater fish I have ever seen! I couldn't believe what I was seeing! The fish's head was as big as mine and it's tail was probably close to a foot across with 40 inches of laker between the two! What a fish. Congrats again Justin on the MONSTER lake trout and I hope that we can fish together again sometime.     PB

[varmonter]

Dang! Nice job! That thing is a beast! Looks kinda skinny though. Often when they look like that it's because they have a rubber bait stuck in their stomach. It stunts their growth. If that was the case with this one, imagine how fat it would be without it! Either way, NICE FISH. Maybe I'll see you out there to day.

As most of the fish in caspian look like this (big head small body)i
Would say its environmental.its not a real healthy lake.
Forage is scarce to support the population..
 What a monster though.  Congrats.,

[dickbaker]

    I bet Perchbait got coordinates of the hole too
Dick

[spot]

Nice fish!

[Land of 10,000]

Congrats!  That is a long one.  Maybe have to meet up with you sometime this year again.  Done with work for the ice fishing season as of now.  Any perch mixed in w/the lakers?  Catch and Release makes it even better.  Blow that photo up to an 8x10, that's what I do with the trophy's I release.  Looks like you owe Perch Bait a tall, cold one when he's old enough...

[wmhunts]

Congratulations
You are officially on a streak!!  Enjoy it while it lasts and take advantage fish and hunt hard!!

[pikeslayer31]

Wow. Very nice job. I was there at 3:00 AM and got 3 lakers in the morning. Bite died for me in the afternoon.

[Fish Hard]

Very nice laker!

[bootstrap]

great fish and report. the ice is too thin to go where we had been getting them. I like your hat, go bruins.

[Cub]

Great day!! Congrats on that beauty 

[paddock]

That's awesome man! Congrats! My buddies and I were at Caspian Saturday too, but got skunked except for 1 dink laker. We jigged from 50ft down to 80ft, and had tip ups set up throughout, and nothing. How deep were you finding them if you don't mind me asking? Thanks. 

[NHHARDWATER]

Now THAT'S a Laker!
Congratulations!

[tench]

Nice fish, even for a bruins fan! I got a few that morning but nothing huge, brought one home for the table, going to eat it tonight.

[thefishingweatherman]

As most of the fish in caspian look like this (big head small body)i
Would say its environmental.its not a real healthy lake.
Forage is scarce to support the population..
 What a monster though.  Congrats.,

I fish there a lot and usually they are much fatter than this one. We got two there today and neither were that skinny. I hear the smelt population may be down a bit this season, but last year all of them we kept were crammed with smelt and perch. Seems like a decent forage base at least, or it wouldn't produce so many big ones.

[JMailbox8]

I fish there a lot and usually they are much fatter than this one. We got two there today and neither were that skinny. I hear the smelt population may be down a bit this season, but last year all of them we kept were crammed with smelt and perch. Seems like a decent forage base at least, or it wouldn't produce so many big ones.

Could it be that it is a female that is skinny from spawning in the fall?

[thefishingweatherman]

Could it be that it is a female that is skinny from spawning in the fall?

I guess it's possible, but even spawned out females typically look beefier in my experience. I got two 27" females on another lake yesterday, and they were both pretty fat, despite only having tiny embryonic eggs inside them. A couple years ago I caught a laker like yours on Champlain, with a big head and slender body, and brought it home. Had a rubber worm in its stomach that looked like it had been there for a year. They can't digest them properly, and they just stay in their stomachs. My father also said that he caught a similar one in Maine once, and a biologist happened to be at the dock when they were leaving. He asked if he could cut into its stomach, and he said sure. Well, same thing, rubber worm in its stomach, and the biologist said that most of the time when they are proportioned like that, it's the reason. Maine has actually done a study on this before, but I haven't looked closely at the results. It's great that you let your trophy fish go. I just wonder if maybe it has something lodged in its gut, because a fish doesn't normally get that long without knowing how to find enough food. I mean, that thing could eat a 13" perch, or a small laker, by the looks of it!!

[JMailbox8]

I did catch a skinny laker in Seymour last year that had several rubber worms in its belly. I would imagine that the effects on them would be similar to stomach stapling. A fish as old as the one I got yesterday could have accumulated a lot of plastic baits. I wonder if a pair of tongs like these could be used to extract plastics? Would be cool to tag a skinny laker that has undergone a "plastic extraction" to see if the effects reverse. https://www.amazon.com/Chef-Craft-21591-1-Piece-Straight/dp/B00440D3DS/ref=lp_289772_1_5?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1485132701&sr=1-5

[thefishingweatherman]

I did catch a skinny laker in Seymour last year that had several rubber worms in its belly. I would imagine that the effects on them would be similar to stomach stapling. A fish as old as the one I got yesterday could have accumulated a lot of plastic baits. I wonder if a pair of tongs like these could be used to extract plastics? Would be cool to tag a skinny laker that has undergone a "plastic extraction" to see if the effects reverse. https://www.amazon.com/Chef-Craft-21591-1-Piece-Straight/dp/B00440D3DS/ref=lp_289772_1_5?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1485132701&sr=1-5

Haha, well, I kinda think that might do more harm that good! A better solution might be to require rubber baits to be made in a digestible fashion, but that's "opening a whole 'nother can of worms". See what I did there?

[spot]

If it were Champlain I'd say check for scars because there are a lot of skinny fish swimming around, being drained by lampreys.

[thefishingweatherman]

If it were Champlain I'd say check for scars because there are a lot of skinny fish swimming around, being drained by lampreys.

I can't recall if the one I was mentioning had a lamprey scar or not, and dangit, I can't find the pic of it either. I pull a lot of lakers out of champlain and I haven't really noticed a pattern where the ones with more lamprey scars are skinnier. Have gotten some fat ones loaded with lamprey scars, and some skinny ones with few or none.

[VTMatt]

Awesome fish. Glad you caught and released it instead of some guy looking to fill his freezer.

[spot]

I can't recall if the one I was mentioning had a lamprey scar or not, and dangit, I can't find the pic of it either. I pull a lot of lakers out of champlain and I haven't really noticed a pattern where the ones with more lamprey scars are skinnier. Have gotten some fat ones loaded with lamprey scars, and some skinny ones with few or none.

most of the scarred fish I've seen seem to be thinner. I haven't seen a scientific study to prove it either way though, so it could be that other factors are involved. I guess it just seemed to me that not only is the fish being sucked on by parasites, but they're also unable to move as well with lampreys hanging on them so they might not be able to hunt as well as a healthy fish, so lampreys have been getting the blame from me.

I'm not a biologist though, and I don't play one on TV.

[JMailbox8]

That certainly was an amazing day of fishing! When I heard you yell to my Dad and I, I looked out of our shanty window just in time to see you pull the laker onto the ice. My initial thoughts were that it was a nice laker, but as I started walking over it just kept on getting bigger and bigger until I finally was standing next to the biggest freshwater fish I have ever seen! I couldn't believe what I was seeing! The fish's head was as big as mine and it's tail was probably close to a foot across with 40 inches of laker between the two! What a fish. Congrats again Justin on the MONSTER lake trout and I hope that we can fish together again sometime.     PB

You and your dad are always welcome to fish with me.

Congrats!  That is a long one.  Maybe have to meet up with you sometime this year again.  Done with work for the ice fishing season as of now.  Any perch mixed in w/the lakers?  Catch and Release makes it even better.  Blow that photo up to an 8x10, that's what I do with the trophy's I release.  Looks like you owe Perch Bait a tall, cold one when he's old enough...

i'm heading back up north on Saturday. I'm not sure if I'm going back to Caspian, or if I'll go to Seymour or Willoughby. No perch mixed with the lakers. I was in the same spot as we fished last year.

That's awesome man! Congrats! My buddies and I were at Caspian Saturday too, but got skunked except for 1 dink laker. We jigged from 50ft down to 80ft, and had tip ups set up throughout, and nothing. How deep were you finding them if you don't mind me asking? Thanks.

I caught it in 15 feet of water. I typically fish them in water shallower than 45 feet.

[Crayfish2]

Hey Justin ... you should enter that laker in the Master Angler Program.  It really deserves to be recognized.  It's easy to do on the VT Fish and Wildlife website, and they'll send you a certificate if you want one.

[JMailbox8]

Hey Justin ... you should enter that laker in the Master Angler Program.  It really deserves to be recognized.  It's easy to do on the VT Fish and Wildlife website, and they'll send you a certificate if you want one.

I entered it the other day, thanks to your pictures