Smokem if ya gottem and a JUMBO

[The_Red_Leaker]

First, thanks to all those that provided information on easy access and fishing reports.

It was a successful mission today as we (1manwolfpack and I) took a first time ice fisher (Par) out for a day at Starvation. We were hoping for perch but after reading stingy reports were not overly confident.

Hit Rabbit Gulch about 6:30 am and walked around shooting through the ice for depths and fish sightings....didn't look good at all. Finally got a blip on the bottom and drilled a few holes. Par wasn't in the water for more than a minute and fish on! Got off at the hole but what a great start. I landed a small perch a little while later but after that the starvation steelies were the only takers the rest of the day with one exception......1mwp's JUMBO! which coughed up 3 crawfish as it exited the water.

After seeing it's diet I threw on a berkley micro-craw and dropped to the bottom and fish on! Thought I had a jumbo of my own but it ended up being a rainbow which was pretty beat-up..maybe a bad meeting with a big walleye? Attached a pic for input on what may have caused his injuries.

No more perch but a great day of sharing the joys of the hard deck with somebody new to the sport. Never to late to pick-up a new hobby even at 71. Beautiful day of weather, catching, sharing, and learning... for all 3 of us, plus we all took something home for the smokers[].


The minor details -

45' of water perch of course on bottom, trout mostly between 12' and 15'. Used mostly gazillas and berkly tubes tipped with meal and a little spray scent.
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[TroutBumDave]

Nice report, man, that is a nice perchie. Too bad he was all alone. Dude, what the crap hit that rainbow?? Looks like he had a run in with a motor boat, or in this case, a gas auger.


... or the Starvation Monster. (those of you who know, know)
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[PIKEMAN99]

good on ya! Glad to see you had good succcess!!!! That'smy theory somke em' if you got em'. When you figure out which end to light. It's just hard to keep them lit. LOL Was you out there today? Sunday? or Saturday?
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[1ManWolfpack]

We were out there Saturday. We are pretty sure we saw you on your wheeler heading out, if I remember right you were pulling a double behind you.
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[The_Red_Leaker]

We were out there yesterday. Could of sworn I saw you on a four wheeler pulling a couple sleds around to the bridge. Was I hallucinating or were you out there too?
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[CoyoteSpinner]

Looks like a productive day out. gutted and gilled 'em, eh? Rack 'em up! Do you smoke 'em whole? It works - had a great whole smoked brown and salmon brought to a special birthday party (my wife's 50th, though maybe I shouldn't divulge!)

That's surely a phat perch! Bet she's busting full of eggs. Still room for a snack though! Chub for sure!

Thanks for the report. Sounds like you had a better trip that the T-Dude. It can happen!

[The_Red_Leaker]

Yep, I smoke-em whole. I cut a few slits through the skin on each side to help with brine and smoke penetration and have had nice results.

TD's report definitely had us concerned but we lucked into few. I'm sure his next outing will have all of us marveling at his success again - can't keep a good fisherman down you know[cool] .
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF][cool]Nice work. The "holy" trout looks like one of the fall planters...that has not put on the feed bag and grown like many of its counterparts. Most of the fall planters are a healthy 13 to 14 inches with decent fins and nice pink flesh from their good diet.

My guess is that the injury may have happened either in the hatchery or shortly after planting. The marks look like what a cormorant might have left after a near miss. Could have been any other kind of fish-eating bird or critter too. A walleye would leave two rows of defined tooth marks...or else a glob of "remnants" after internally processing that fishy. And they do that, ya know?

Super toad perch. Kinda defies the theory of a reduced feeding thing with a belly full of eggs. But most of the perch I have filleted in the last few weeks have had empty innards. If that fish barfed up the dads they may not have gone all the way down into the gullet.

Surprising how much the larger fish in Starvation rely on crawdads in their diets. Toward the end of summer last year I had a good day on decent sized walleyes at the back end of Rabbit Gulch...in only a few feet of water. The lake was still dropping fast and the walleyes were up in there chowing down on the crawdads that were being forced out of their rocky and weedy homes.

Hopefully a lot more of this year's class of decent sized perch will grow to toad status by next winter.
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[like.2.fly]

That rainbow looks like a victim of line wrap to me.
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[The_Red_Leaker]

I didn't feel anything odd when reeling him in but that makes sense looking at the wounds. Maybe I'm not the first to catch that guy
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[PIKEMAN99]

Yep that was me I hate to have gas smell in my tent if I do have to use it so I always drag 2 sleds. A honda don't feel no difference[] I usually have a couple 4 wheelers on the trailer too. But the guys I fished with Saturday didn't need them. The cummins didn't feel no difference [] We did good on the Perch over there not Real good but OK. I got a couple more cigar walleye. Our new friend long kneck bottle caught a 6 1/4 pounder. Lucky Devil. Good luck to you and your Brother and your Dad.
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