12/17/2005 Stoddard

Bret, myself, and a friend of Bret’s made it out again this morning. We started walking to the first spot at 0′ dark thirty and man was it chilly on the face Bret punched a few holes and we got set-up and started to fish and waited for daylight. The fish didn’t cooperate until after daylight, in fact I didn’t catch a fish until around 8-8:30. Bret had a couple nice fish in the bucket and quite a few small ones caught as well. Around 9:00, we all decided to take a long walk to a less crowded area. This change was worth the move It started off good and then when more people started showing up, the bite slowed down some. Then around 12:00 or so, there was an awesome flurry of aggressive biters. Bigfish, Fish27, and another friend stopped by and introduced themselves and set-up behind us. I will let them tell their story, from what we could hear, they were having a ball I ended up with a dozen keepers that I brought home. I threw several back that could have been kept, but what I had was plenty. Not sure what Bret and Joe ended up with. I do know Bret had some real nice fish and Joe had quite a few in the bucket as well. My main bait today was a forage minnow in rainbow color tipped with a waxie. This jig caught all but 2 of my keeper fish

hey it was great to meet you guys finally!
We deffinately didnt do as good as you guys, but i put at least 3 fish over 9″ in my friend willy’s bucket. I wasn’t planning on keeping any, but for the last 15 minutes of sitting in bret’s hole , i managed to squeak out a few more keepers. I threw back a nice gill but then caught a keeper perch and i though ah what the heck..i caught another nice gill and then caught a good 11 inch perch. All in all, it was a slow day i would say but it was still a fun time.
Nice to meet you guys

It was nice to meet you dudes also Cade
As stated above, the bigger gills are getting tight lipped. It helped Joe, Wats and I to move away from the crowd.
My best producer is still a purple ant with a waxie. I kept 15 nice gills and 1 perch. These fish came out of 8fow. At times the fish were tight to the bottom and at times 2-3 feet off the bottom. The Vex sure is a help on tough bites like today! Just a heads up, we are still finding some very soft ice. We even found some water on top of only 2-3 inches of ice. It is not a good idea to just take off on water you don’t know yet. Be safe and good luck fishing people

Good thing you brought that up Bret about the soft ice. There was one place where it bounced when you walked on it Needless to say, I chose to go around that spot

where did you find that 2-3 inch ice? the area we were in was a good 6-7 inches i would say…..i would agree though however that it was slushy in some spots. The area where we were set up had a good 4 inches of sloppy slush on top. It was funny how you guys said you should lay some of those bass on the ice for a pic so slop could be happy…later in the day i caught one that couldn’t have been more than 2 inches honestly. I could barely fit my finger in its mouth

you guys sure know how to hammer the big fish out there! i might have to make a trip up there next year meet some of you guys like i said nice fish and keep the good reports comein!
-Aaron
i didnt get out today i had to help my dad on the house. but during xmas break were gonna hit it hard!

Cade-That bad ice was straight out in front of where we were fishing. It comes out from the chute between the new rock wall and runs out to the middle and toward the tracks a little. It was good where we were, then got slushy, then got thin and soft. Not good I don’t know how many tiny bass I caught in that spot. For awhile that was all I was getting. Amazing how a 3″ bass can hit so hard

Give us a howler any time Aaron
I hope you stick some pigs on your break

it was a fun day out on the water i hope to see you guys out there again some time soon! maybe over christmas break will run into each other again. it is always nice to meet some fellow IDAers!

those perch made a pretty tasty sandwich…

COming up from kenosha on wed. How is the fishing out there. THaks for the help.

last i was out…sunday, it was slow. With the warming trend on its way, we may see a pick up. I will be out on friday all day (winter break finally starts ) and i will let you know how i do. As for wednesday, i cant really predict how things will be…Im sure they are improving however.

It is going to warm up to 29 tomorrow so maybe it will start to turn these fish on. I also think during the week it could be good with less traffic?

Less traffic is more the key than weather right now. Stoddard was pounded for a couple weeks striaght, not to mention the week even before that when Wats and I hit it Don’t be scared to find water away from the crowd. They will be anywhere from 3 to 8fow. Just be safe. We did find some soft ice to the North.