04-10-2006, 03:04 PM
I've been monitoring BFT most of the winter, looking for ice fishing info on the Berry. Never felt like I had much to offer beyond the basic stuff. Have always enjoyed the reports that included something of an adventure.
Sunday morning we hiked in from the upper parking lot on the Soldier Creek side at about 6:15. The road leading to the first boat ramp was frozen, but showed tracks from the day before where someone was sinking in to their knees! The lake was smooth and had 6-8 inches of frozen slush and enough ice that the auger went to the handles before breaking through.
Fished the East shore heading towards the dam. Started out in in 45' of water, hit a nice slot cut as soon as I had my line in the water. Marking a few fish but not much action. Moved in to 35' of water. Same story. Moved to 25' of water and started marking a lot of fish. The hits were usually pretty light, but every once in a while we would get a hard hit. Iced a couple of cuts and three rainbows, kept one at 18", (bow) these were the first rainbows we caught this winter!
I was using a kastmaster with power bait on top with a ratfinky and wax worm a foot below it. Everything hit the wax worm, but I like using the kastmaster as an attracter.
Dropped my line to the bottom and brought it up two cranks, sat down my rod, reached for the coffee and noticed that my line went curly. Five minutes later I saw a monster cut go past the hole. When it saw daylight it started stripping line like crazy. Eventually I got him to the hole and saw that it was swimming upside down so I figured it must be worn out and started working it's head up the hole. Not wanting to snap my line or lip rip it I reached down to grab it by the gills. At that point the fish was anything but exhausted and started thrashing all over trying to dive back down the hole which I pobably should have just let it dive. But no, I had to get excited, dropped my rod and went after it with both hands!
When the hook on the RatFinky straighted out, the fish was off and I couldn't get a grip on him. He was gone. It was then that I realized the treble hook from the kastmaster was deeply imbeded in my finger! My hands were so cold from being in the water I never felt it sink in.
I cut off two of the barbs and the eyelet and tried doing surgery on myself. It didn't want to back out and I tried to push it through but it was too deep. Plenty of blood but very little pain.
We headed out at 9:00 to find a clinic. The ice surface and the road was still frozen when we left. The sun had just gotten to us when we left the lake. I suspect that the slush would have started forming by 10:00 or 10:30.
All of you hard core Berry fans can still fish if you're willing to get out there early and leave early. We're going again next weekend.
This is the second time I've had a very large fish that I could not get out of the hole. Any suggestions on technique? Thanks.
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Sunday morning we hiked in from the upper parking lot on the Soldier Creek side at about 6:15. The road leading to the first boat ramp was frozen, but showed tracks from the day before where someone was sinking in to their knees! The lake was smooth and had 6-8 inches of frozen slush and enough ice that the auger went to the handles before breaking through.
Fished the East shore heading towards the dam. Started out in in 45' of water, hit a nice slot cut as soon as I had my line in the water. Marking a few fish but not much action. Moved in to 35' of water. Same story. Moved to 25' of water and started marking a lot of fish. The hits were usually pretty light, but every once in a while we would get a hard hit. Iced a couple of cuts and three rainbows, kept one at 18", (bow) these were the first rainbows we caught this winter!
I was using a kastmaster with power bait on top with a ratfinky and wax worm a foot below it. Everything hit the wax worm, but I like using the kastmaster as an attracter.
Dropped my line to the bottom and brought it up two cranks, sat down my rod, reached for the coffee and noticed that my line went curly. Five minutes later I saw a monster cut go past the hole. When it saw daylight it started stripping line like crazy. Eventually I got him to the hole and saw that it was swimming upside down so I figured it must be worn out and started working it's head up the hole. Not wanting to snap my line or lip rip it I reached down to grab it by the gills. At that point the fish was anything but exhausted and started thrashing all over trying to dive back down the hole which I pobably should have just let it dive. But no, I had to get excited, dropped my rod and went after it with both hands!
When the hook on the RatFinky straighted out, the fish was off and I couldn't get a grip on him. He was gone. It was then that I realized the treble hook from the kastmaster was deeply imbeded in my finger! My hands were so cold from being in the water I never felt it sink in.
I cut off two of the barbs and the eyelet and tried doing surgery on myself. It didn't want to back out and I tried to push it through but it was too deep. Plenty of blood but very little pain.
We headed out at 9:00 to find a clinic. The ice surface and the road was still frozen when we left. The sun had just gotten to us when we left the lake. I suspect that the slush would have started forming by 10:00 or 10:30.
All of you hard core Berry fans can still fish if you're willing to get out there early and leave early. We're going again next weekend.
This is the second time I've had a very large fish that I could not get out of the hole. Any suggestions on technique? Thanks.
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