My friend Greg and I have been trying to make a trip up north to do some ice fishing all winter, but we could not seem to get our schedules to work. Well Monday we finally left Kansas for a four day trip which amounted to two days of driving and two days of fishing. On the way to Mille Lacs we had to make a few stops to get my Marcum VS380 camera fixed (Thank you Jon), pick up a few things from Otter (I sure do love this Monster Box 
), and pick up the auger I bought from Matt Grow last fall. This is basically where this trip really starts to come together, Matt helped me put the monster box on my four wheeler. And while talking we I told him about the audio report that Tony Roach had posted on Hunters Point resort web site that trophy19 told me about in a PM. Since Greg and I have never fished for perch Matt explained what the perch were doing and what we had to look for. When we left home we did not have reservations and Matt said that he would try to find us a place on our budget while we drove towards the Pond and call us with anything he could find. He also told us where to find bait and off we went.
While I was driving Greg called his wife at home and she found Hunters Point Resort phone number with a couple phone calls we had reservations made with Jason Bongers at Hunters. Once that was done I call Matt back to let him know that we had reservations and I invited him up for some fishing, really I wanted his expertise… Did I say that? 
TUESDAY We made arrangements to meet for breakfast and talked some more about what we were going to do. I have never drove my truck out on ice and was worried about getting stuck among other concerns, but after some reassurance from Matt everything would be OK we loaded up and out on the ice we went.
Our plan was to fish in 30-35 FOW and not spend too much time on each hole we would drop our jigs down to the bottom bounce it off of the bottom a few times and raise it about a foot to hold for 20-30 seconds if nothing showed up we would move to the next hole. We also checked with each other to make sure we were not using the same color. Greg was the first to find some fish to show interest in his offering so we started fishing holes adjacent to his hole in hopes to find more. Tuesday was a very poor day to say the least with only six fish to show after drilling over 100 holes and nine hours of fishing. About half way through the day my VX1 stopped showing me the bottom foot of the water column which made it difficult to fish close to the bottom.
Other than the fog hanging around for most of the morning the weather was very nice. Another nice thing happened when we got back to the resort, but first let me tell you when we met Matt for breakfast who was there but Gary Roach. I have never met Gary before but have seen his picture enough over the years to recognize him and I introduced myself to him. Anyway that evening when we got back to the resort hanging our heads in shame I was telling Gary how our day went. To make a long tale a little shorter Gary gave us half of his creel. Greg cleaned all of the fish and we had Jason cook em’ up with some fries for dinner.
WEDNESDAY With the rain it started to look like out trip was going to be a wash but I was not going to say anything negative. At breakfast I talked to Jason some more about how Tuesday went and to see if he might have any advise. He pulled out a map of the roads that the resort has plowed and showed me some areas to try. The first area that he drew on the map was close to the third area we fished Tuesday not intending to but we camped there all day to fill our limits of perch. I was on the move all day and the water was running across the ice like nobody’s business, between the rain and the snow melting some holes had six inches of slush around them.
I came up with a plan to run and gun with my flasher not working like it should. I had the zoom turned on so when I dropped my jig down and got within 5 feet of the bottom I would slow the decent to a crawl if fish would start to rise I would stop it at about 1 ½ to 3 feet of the bottom and wait for a bite, nine times out of ten it would come within the first 30 seconds. The bigger fish were more apt to come up off of the bottom than the smaller ones, this allowed me to make better use of the spikes I had left.
The fish in the pictures we both caught by 11:00 or 11:30 am Wednesday my boots were leaking like a sieve so I went back to the cabin to warm my feet, change my socks, and eat lunch. I put on some dry socks wrapped my feet with plastic bags so I could go back to finish up the day. We ended the day with a lot of very nice perch with the largest being about 1 lb 6 oz and several over 1 pound.
Thanks a lot for taking us out Tuesday Matt Grow 
Way to stay after it, even after a slow first day, you were able to put it all together and put a pile of fish on the ice 
Nope, Jeff your own fish always taste better. 
