02-09-2021, 06:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-09-2021, 06:22 AM by TheOtherSide.)
Hit Strawberry- Correction..... Soldier Creek, for a 1st night ever out on the hard water amazing fun time!
We got there late, so it was more of a hurry up and find a place to set up a tent in this insane wind kind of night. And, We did it! We found a place on the giant lake to set up a tent as the sun set.
Our initial plan was to get there earlier and fish a few places down towards the narrows and other places, but that was bust and we were way behind schedule. We ended up in 80-100 fow by the dam, and prayed the stakes set would hold the tents in the crazy wind. Definitely a sit in your tent and run the heater at full medium kind of night.
Speaking of heaters, I ran my first two little guys out and started to put the next two in. I found the one side wouldn't seal and would leak a little liquid propane onto the watery floor. After fighting off the unexpected frostbite from the leaky -2000* liquid propane and being the genius, I am. I thought I'd just run one tank on the good side. That worked until I hit the button to start the heater and the rest of the liquid propane in the tent also decided to light........... WOW!
I was able to put my eyelashes out because there is still a thin crust of snow on the ice. I was grateful because slamming my face on solid ice would have been way worse, so you have to appreciate the small victories. As my vision returned, and I assured myself this wasn't heaven, I aired out the tent.
Settling back into my last first night on the ice, I was graphing a ton of fish, but could get no love. As the night wore onto 2200, I started getting fish on the drop with pink ratso's and white glow spoons. Later, I had to just dead stick it, but watch my graph as the fish came in because the bite was soooooo light. I'd watch my flasher/graph and then watch my pole and have to set it because it would barely move/twitch. If I wasn't fishing with a flasher/graph, I would have missed most of the fish I caught. Ended up catching a lot of Cutt's in just about every length in and under the slot. The fish were mostly in 20-30 feet down, but I graphed fish throughout the water column.
Fishing was great from midnight to 0700, but it was also in waves where I'd sometimes find myself trying to manage 2 poles with fish on them and other times starting to nod. It died as dead as fishing could be at 0700 and we left at 1000. I graphed so many fish overnight, I felt like it could have even been better, but they were so dang finicky.
Anyways, ice was 12" with maybe 1-2" crusty snow on top, but the wind was blowing that around. Hit some deep spotty slush, but it didn't cause a problem with the sleds because it wasn't over a very long distance. Definitely some large open slippery ice areas with no snow.
I think I'm going to try Strawberry again next week, but not do the overnight thing.
We got there late, so it was more of a hurry up and find a place to set up a tent in this insane wind kind of night. And, We did it! We found a place on the giant lake to set up a tent as the sun set.
Our initial plan was to get there earlier and fish a few places down towards the narrows and other places, but that was bust and we were way behind schedule. We ended up in 80-100 fow by the dam, and prayed the stakes set would hold the tents in the crazy wind. Definitely a sit in your tent and run the heater at full medium kind of night.
Speaking of heaters, I ran my first two little guys out and started to put the next two in. I found the one side wouldn't seal and would leak a little liquid propane onto the watery floor. After fighting off the unexpected frostbite from the leaky -2000* liquid propane and being the genius, I am. I thought I'd just run one tank on the good side. That worked until I hit the button to start the heater and the rest of the liquid propane in the tent also decided to light........... WOW!
I was able to put my eyelashes out because there is still a thin crust of snow on the ice. I was grateful because slamming my face on solid ice would have been way worse, so you have to appreciate the small victories. As my vision returned, and I assured myself this wasn't heaven, I aired out the tent.
Settling back into my last first night on the ice, I was graphing a ton of fish, but could get no love. As the night wore onto 2200, I started getting fish on the drop with pink ratso's and white glow spoons. Later, I had to just dead stick it, but watch my graph as the fish came in because the bite was soooooo light. I'd watch my flasher/graph and then watch my pole and have to set it because it would barely move/twitch. If I wasn't fishing with a flasher/graph, I would have missed most of the fish I caught. Ended up catching a lot of Cutt's in just about every length in and under the slot. The fish were mostly in 20-30 feet down, but I graphed fish throughout the water column.
Fishing was great from midnight to 0700, but it was also in waves where I'd sometimes find myself trying to manage 2 poles with fish on them and other times starting to nod. It died as dead as fishing could be at 0700 and we left at 1000. I graphed so many fish overnight, I felt like it could have even been better, but they were so dang finicky.
Anyways, ice was 12" with maybe 1-2" crusty snow on top, but the wind was blowing that around. Hit some deep spotty slush, but it didn't cause a problem with the sleds because it wasn't over a very long distance. Definitely some large open slippery ice areas with no snow.
I think I'm going to try Strawberry again next week, but not do the overnight thing.