Ice Season Summary and Last Weekend

How did your season and last weekend go? Between the late ice, recently moving and getting married, this winter was one of my slowest in a long long time.

I still managed to make some great memories, none the less! Made it to the IDO get together where my buddies 26″ eye won him a TUCR, the night after we put the smack down on some crappies including a 14″ for him (he had the horseshoe firmly in place that weekend). Had a couples weekend on Leech that was a blast, and included my wife catching her first walleye through the ice! And finally this past Friday I had an appointment (I sell insurance) with a client and friend that included some fishing on Mille Lacs. We ended up fishing 4 different flats, that resulted in 35 fish (8 hours of fishing) of all sizes from 8″ up to 26.5″. It was very encouraging to see such a wide variety of year classes!!! Here’s a pic of the 26.5″

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I have been on the ice less than 10 times this ice season. I am working hard towards my goal of not ice fishing at all. I would like to go south enough to find open water all winter. I did catch walleye, perch and tullibee this winter. The tullibee were in the 17″ range and did smoke very well.

That is one thing I didn’t get to do this year, is catch some Tullie’s. I also like to get them smoked (Thielen’s in Pierz and Little Falls do a great job, if you are smokerless like me), and use them in a variety of recipes. I’ll add them to omelets or use them in a Spread just replace them for Salmon in a Smoked Salmon spread recipe. Great stuff!

This has been probably one of my best ice season, for #s at least…I didn’t fish walleyes much because I figure I fish them a lot in the summer, so I stuck to pannies…The crappies have been biting almost everywhere I’ve went it seems, most in that eater class with 13″ being my biggest so far…This has been the winter for big gills for me, I think I’ve got 10 over 10″ I believe….Gills are my new favorite to ice fish for, well except lakers….