FISH LAKE PERCH TOURNAMENT

[bulldogslc]

Sounds good
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[Jedidiah]

Last year I got right on a hole in the weeds and caught sixty in about 1.5 hours. Decided to go ask for sure if they weren't doing the first to 75 thing that year and when I came back I asked a guy by me how he was doing and he said he hadn't caught anything. 30 minutes later the wind kicked up and one strap on my tent failed, bucked it up and scattered my 60+ fish across the ice around me. Karma, I guess.

Oh yeah, if you get a tent, get four extra stakes for the interior tie-downs, it's worth it.
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[SBennett]

Jedidiah is not exagarating about the value of staking down your tent. Even if the weather man gives you a 100% guarantee the wind will not blow stake it down anyway.
A very real danger exists if your gear, much less a little kiddo, gets carried away to open water or thin ice over a possibly deeper/warmer portion of the lake.
Please never forget this, the deeper a lake is the more heat is held in that column of water that must rise and dissipate before the top layer chills enough to freeze.
Other than that, ice fishing is awesome!
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[Jedidiah]

Don't take the wind story as some kind of scary warning against ice fishing. It really is very safe as long as you know the rules and take precautions, but on the other hand there's a lot of potential for bad things to happen if you don't have ice safety down to begin with. Look at it like boating, you always take the necessary gear on a boat and you always know conditions before you make the trip. You might want to google pressure ridges, that's not a thing to learn first hand. Easy to recognize and avoid if you know about them but seriously unfun if you learn by going waist deep into the water.
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[PBH]

all those warnings above are good. Just more reason to stick close to the crowds. If you are unsure of what is safe, and what isn't -- then you certainly shouldn't go venture off where nobody else is fishing!



since the football is staying home, will you guys please leave your dogs at home too?
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[SBennett]

Don't worry PBH, my dog will be home humping the football.
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[bulldogslc]

Thank you for all the great safety advice as well and I will be taking them into account. I was going to go without a shelter, but Mama nixed that. I'll be taking extra precautions due to wind. I'm hoping she stays comfortable and has fun so this will be a continuing activity
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[SBennett]

Hub shelters= inexpensive, lots of room, easy to pack out, no permanent seats, pain to move around to find fish.
Sled shelters= not cheap, built in seats, very comfortable, very easy to move to stay on fish, heavy and bulky.
I use a Fish Trap Scout when I fish on my own and an Otter Lodge if the wife goes. She loves FL perch in the Otter with a little heater going. She won't unhook the little rascals so I rarely get to fish but it is worth it.
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[bulldogslc]

Nice...I have a feeling I'll be getting one for Christmas. Mama was looking at them on the Sportsman's Warehouse sit along with a sled (with harness so it won't be so hard on this old back). I'll keep ya posted haha
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[Jedidiah]

Get a pair of thin forceps. I pull those suckers out of the hole, open the forceps around the line and slide them down to the shank on the hook, clamp down, give myself a little slack on the line and flip the little sucker off the hook and into the corner of the tent. Works great with ratfinkees and jigs, not so good with Swedish Pimples or Perch Talkers.
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[bulldogslc]

Sounds good...I'm pretty sure I have some forceps sitting around somewhere
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[bulldogslc]

Alright, I think we're good on this. Got a 3 man team and the bare essential equipment. Hopefully everyone will have fun and we'll have a fish fry that Saturday night
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[SBennett]

Nice!
Now keep fingers crossed for lows in the 20's, highs in the 40's, and zero W.
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[bulldogslc]

That's the plan...hopefully the missus has fun, so we can continue on this fine American tradition...haha
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