12-28-2016, 05:16 PM
It was an interesting day. Got the Armada loaded up and left with plenty of time to get to the meet-up place with Barry ahead of the appointed time. Got headed south and heard a loud grinding sound in the front right end of the Armada. Pulled off and couldn't find anything obviously wrong. Got back on the freeway and same loud sound. Made may way back home, left the Armada with my mechanic, and on my way again, this time in the Taurus, but now just over an hour late. Side note -- mechanic couldn't find anything wrong and the sound has disappeared.
Met up with Barry and expected him to say, "Because we are getting such a late start, let's fish Strawberry instead.", but he didn't say anything and we just kept driving past Strawberry. We just happened to notice that the outside temperature read -20 as we motored past Strawberry. Was glad that we were not fishing Strawberry that day.
Noticed that as we drove across the bridge, at Starvation, that there was no ice to be seen.
Had a little excitement as we traveled along (got to have a pleasant conversation with one of the Basin's finest) but no harm done.
Starting to worry that we would find Pelican with slick ice (minimal snow as we approached it), but was thrilled to find it with about two inches of mostly-frozen snow on the surface (excellent conditions for walking). The ice was about 5 inches thick. The water is up quite a ways from where I have seen it on previous ice trips.
Hiked out a couple hundred yards, or so, and drilled a few holes. Tried there for about 45 minutes with neither one of us seeing any marks on our sonars. I checked my GPS and was happy to find that I had a GPS waypoint, from a previous trip on the ice. We moved over in that area and started marking fish immediately.
It was one of those days if you saw a mark on the screen you could expect a bite, and we saw lots of marks on our screens. We moved around that area a little and we found plenty of fish. We were fishing water around 13 to 13 1/2' deep and they were on or near the bottom. I was surprised at the number of bass that we caught, especially Barry. Bass ranged in size from about 4 inches to 15 inches. Most of the bluegill were 7 to 8 inches long and I don't believe any were bigger than 8 inches. The quanity was excellent, but the size was smaller (both the bass and especially the bluegill) than I am used to catching at Pelican. Small glow ice-type flies, tipped with mealies, waxies or a chunk of crawler all worked.
As always, great fishing outing with Barry.
[signature]
Met up with Barry and expected him to say, "Because we are getting such a late start, let's fish Strawberry instead.", but he didn't say anything and we just kept driving past Strawberry. We just happened to notice that the outside temperature read -20 as we motored past Strawberry. Was glad that we were not fishing Strawberry that day.
Noticed that as we drove across the bridge, at Starvation, that there was no ice to be seen.
Had a little excitement as we traveled along (got to have a pleasant conversation with one of the Basin's finest) but no harm done.
Starting to worry that we would find Pelican with slick ice (minimal snow as we approached it), but was thrilled to find it with about two inches of mostly-frozen snow on the surface (excellent conditions for walking). The ice was about 5 inches thick. The water is up quite a ways from where I have seen it on previous ice trips.
Hiked out a couple hundred yards, or so, and drilled a few holes. Tried there for about 45 minutes with neither one of us seeing any marks on our sonars. I checked my GPS and was happy to find that I had a GPS waypoint, from a previous trip on the ice. We moved over in that area and started marking fish immediately.
It was one of those days if you saw a mark on the screen you could expect a bite, and we saw lots of marks on our screens. We moved around that area a little and we found plenty of fish. We were fishing water around 13 to 13 1/2' deep and they were on or near the bottom. I was surprised at the number of bass that we caught, especially Barry. Bass ranged in size from about 4 inches to 15 inches. Most of the bluegill were 7 to 8 inches long and I don't believe any were bigger than 8 inches. The quanity was excellent, but the size was smaller (both the bass and especially the bluegill) than I am used to catching at Pelican. Small glow ice-type flies, tipped with mealies, waxies or a chunk of crawler all worked.
As always, great fishing outing with Barry.
[signature]
