Anybody going to be fishing the Brice Prairie Conservation tourney this weekend? It will be held Feb.7 and goes until 3:00. Tickets for drawings can be purchased at the former Red Sails bar parking lot. I have not seen what they are raffling this year. They are paying for biggest fish in several catagories. You can also buy tickets at Schaefers Bait shop. The weather looks to be decent so let’s all go and try to catch some bigguns 
Went out after work for an hour or so, It took us like 15 minutes to drill 2 holes 
, and turns out we parked right on top of some weeds….and could barely fish it. It wasn’t really even a fair effort 
, and there was no way i was going to try and drill more holes…..I NEED A POWER AUGER!!
J.S., you must have a bummer of an auger. I only own a hand auger myself and have no problem cutting holes even with the extra ice this year. Look into buying yourself one of the Lazer augers. They are the black ones that are advertised as being able to cut open old holes. This really comes in handy with thick ice. You can cut through holes that have been frozen over for a day or two or three and save a lot of time. There’s no way it should take you fifteen minutes to drill two holes. I’m guessing you were pretty tuckered out by then, too. No need going to the gym after a day on the ice, eh?
lol..yeah i’d say my blades could either be replaced or sharpened….I think it took so long cause my arm/shoulder started burning. Good thing we had beer. 
I can testify to slop basses auger. I think the blades may be slightly dull 
. I am thinking about heading to the Lake Pepin tourny this weekend until I heard that there is one on lake onalaska. Has anyone heard what the prizes are (just cash?). Or if someone has a contact I could call that would be great too.
I thought Slop Basses auger was a heck of a workout idea. I had a sore shoulder for 2 days!! 
Of course, part of that could be I am incredibly out of shape right now also.
Where’s that swap forum again? lol….I think i’m gonna sell a really good auger 
Buy a Lazer auger. You’ll never look back! 
I love mine!
Another tip–go as small diameter-wise as you can. If you fish primarily panfish, a six-incher is all you need. I own a five-incher and I only ever had one fish on that I struggled to get up the hole, a pound and a half crappie about thirteen inches long. No doubt they get bigger and a five inch hole might be a problem then. The smaller the hole, the less ice to move and the faster you can drill. Lazer makes them down to four inches. I’ve seen a couple guys with that size. Now if you’re talking tip ups for pike and bass, or you’re fishing for walleye, that’s a different story. You should be able to find a new one for around fifty bucks, maybe less.
I was thinking of fishing the torney this Sat. with the little booger. What time does it start and is the entry just buying a raffle ticket. Any info apprecaited. Looks like plenty of guys are pre-fishing today. Thanks
Buctail..don’t know all the info…but i’ll be there …!!! Watson? 
Sorry couldn’t answer earlier but could not log in. Anyway, here is the deal. There is no official time to begin, but it does end at 3:00. The cost is $1/ticket. There are also raffles for guns, cash, and fishing equipment. You may purchase tickets at Schaefer’s Boat Livery, or just down the street at the forer Red Sails bar. That is where the weigh-in tent,raffle area, and the food and drink area will be. The prizes are for largest fish for bass, northern, crappie, gill, and perch. Not sure if there is a rough fish catagorie or not. So with that, come on out and enjoy the day. The fish are there just waiting to be found .
Don’t think I will be getting in the tourny, but my plans are to head out to 22 and maybe start in the bay and move out. So if anyone is around that way I will have a clam 5600, stop by and say hi.
John…If the bite is no good there…..head out w/the rest of us and fish……
have you guys walked from 22 over that way… I noticed there appears to be what looks like a crack off of that point coming out of the bay. I would think that would be safe enough to drag a shack over wouldn’t it?
johnl-We will be on the other side of the lake. I am sure Slop Bass wouldn’t mind if you came over by us. There is plenty of room . If the fish don’t bite at least you won’t have to talk to yourself 
. We will be starting off to the right of the boat landing by Schaefer’s. If you want to join us, let us know.
The right side… I thought that you guys would be out by the runway lights. If I am not hitting them over on 22 I will head over by you guys. Not to be mean, but I hope I dont have to make the trip over there if you know what I mean Good luck to everyone tomorrow.
Don’t feel bad…I hope to not have too come over there . The lights have been dead for me for quite awhile. I just couldn’t stop myself from trying just one more time . As far as that big crack-I myself wouldn’t go over it at all, foot or machine. The offer still stands if needed. I hope ya hammer ’em over there .
John….there is nothing safe about that HUGE crack in the ice 
…I know exactly where you’re talking about and i wouldn’t trust it for the life of me .. If you want to join us….take 12.48 minutes and drive back over to meet us…i know we’ll be on fish
I had to go up to MPLS early this week for work, and stopped by the Cabela’s outlet on the way back. They have several small hand augers, I think most of them were Eskimos in the 4 or 5 inch size. They were around $30-$40.
can’t make it up this weekend, but hope to next weekend. will be looking for Slop Bass’s report this evening.
Well let’s just say we gave the fish a day off because we really didn’t want to catch any . Slop Bass and I seen some crappie and gills that were unbelievable in size. I mean huge, mondo, monster sized. Between the two of us we iced 1 keeper gill. It was still fun, but very frustrating at the same time. We downsized, upsized, tried 4 different baits, every color, and every technique we could think of. These fish were just plain in a negative mood. Both of us did win door prizes though 
. We finished the day at Dresbach and did well. Slop posted about that in the Walleye area.
The tourney/derby today was alright 
…We got to the ice around 7 a.m. and got setup..Sat for a while, wasn’t seeing much, so we started hole hopping. Still not much going..We finally decided to plant ourselves down where we had been catching ’em during the week and BOY DID THEY START ROLLING THROUGH…
Only thing was we couldn’t catch them 
. I saw so many Bruiser ‘Gills and Crappie….I saw one crappie so big it made me wanna reach down and grab it.
We didn’t end up w/anything worth taking to weigh-in. However, there were 3 @2lb Crappie that won and WOW were they monsters… I’d say the biggest going 2 easily….We left and went to Dresbach for some saugers/’eyes…check other posting for that report.
John…How did you do on 22 today?
I set up at around 7:00 myself. First 4 drops I had 4 bass. nothing large. I picked up a couple more then around 8:00 the bass quit and I saw some sunfish swimming around, but boy were they spooky. I could get them to come over and look at the jig, sometimes they would even bite on the head, but had a really hard time getting them to bite the hook. I did land some, but nothing large enough to keep. Overall I was just excited to see fish swiming around. I did manage to get a glimse of a really nice bass. Man do they look sweet swiming under a 6 inch hole. Anyway it is about 11:30 and I think I am going to head out and try my luck again on fishermans road. Not much else to do and it looks like a nice day. I will have my shack along.
Thought I would update everyone. I just got back from Fishermans road. I got out there about 12:00, right away I was on some fish. Caught the keepers between 12:00 and 2:00 and then the rest of the time I was getting little ones. Ended up landing about 25 kept 6. So by no means the best day out but atleast I found some to bite my hook. I will post a picture later but right now I have to go and clean them. Slopbass I read the instant messages on the entrance screen. Didn’t do so hot huh, or should I say cold
some pics from today
Some nice bruisers john
Definitely some nice gills 
. How aggressive were they? Seems like the fish are real spooky this year. Maybe as we fisherman get better, the fish are also evolving into harder to catch fish .
The two bigger ones I caught were actually very agressive. But the rest of them I actually had to work for. They seem to come and look at it easy enough, but getting them to bite can be a whole nother story. Seemed like I had the best luck jiging agrresive for 5 – 10 seconds and then letting it sit and of course I caught some on a slow fall. But it seemed like if the bait was moving at all the fish wouldn’t touch it.
That is how they were for us as well. All the fish that bit never moved the line or the pole at all. If we would have been in dirty water, we would have never known we were bit. I am thinking (and hoping), that toward the end of Feb. they start getting more aggressive.
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