I got to camp Friday around 7pm and unloaded all the stuff I needed into the camp in some nasty snow! I then went down to the 1st Lake and loaded the gear onto the sled. It was snowing so bad it took me 45 minutes following the shoreline at 10mph to find my honey hole. I set up the cusk traps and after an hour or so, I decided it was time to head back to camp. I grabbed my GPS to find that the batteries went dead. It was a crapshoot again getting back across the lake. I ended up near Camp Otter, much further north than I wanted to be. So I head south along the shoreline and went into camp. There was already 6" of fresh snow when I got there. I could not sleep and got up at 4am and went back out. I did catch two small cusk (I did enter them in the cusk league and Spike, size does not matter becuase right now, I have the lead!) I fished until 9am and decided to call it quits. Last night I rebaited and checked them this morning. I had one cusk about 8" long and then I caught two of the biggest cusk I have ever seen come out of the 1st.
Now for the heart breaker. I did not carry the auger with me this morning. I did not ever dream I would need it. But the last trap I picked up, I had a monster cusk on. I opened the hole the best I could with my hatchet. I could not get the cusk up the hole. (a 10" hole too) I gave the fish some slack and really opened the hole up as much as I could. I cleared out the ice chips and brought the fish up again. First I saw the stomach and realized the fish had wrapped himself up in the line and was coming up broadside. I could not get the fish to bend. I let the fish go back down and I brought it back up. This time I saw it's head. It was about the size of my fist! No lie! It started to fight and I let it take some line. I did not want to horse it! After about 10 seconds of pulling, I brought it back up. This time it came up on it's side again and I got a good look at it's stomach. This thing looked like it had swallowed a Nerf football! Down it went again. I brought it up and thought I had it started in the hole and the line broke. The fish went down and I just sat back. I fish had rubbed the line on the rocks. Man what a fish. It is by far the biggest cusk I have ever had on.
here are some pics from the ones I did catch.
