Brainerd Wedding Day Report

As most of you know, I took the last two weekends off from Mille Lacs in order to get some stuff done and fish the Brainerd area. My little sister Stacy got married this weekend in Brainerd and my job was pretty easy, take anyone from out of town out fishing. Normally this would be a pretty easy task, but with the negative fish we found last weekend I was a little worried what this weekend would bring.

The plan for the day was to start early and hit shallow feeding areas in search of some big pike and bluegills. The first spot we hit ended up being the spot we spent the entire day. This picture is Tyler Anderson from Nebraska(brother of the groom)with the first pike of the day, a huge 35 inch fish that weighed in over 16 pounds.

Throughout the day we picked up quite a few pike, with the best periods being the first 2 hours of the day and the last two. Ty set the bar pretty high with his first fish, and it would hold up to be the biggest on the day. But, Jack did get in on the action with the 6 pound fish that came from 7ft of water on a big sucker minnow.

Besides great pike fishing we had some really good Bluegill action throughout the day. The first 3 hours of the day the bite was really good, but as members of the wedding party showed up, things started to slow over the lunch hour. We kept at it and people would come and go. My dad Gary put in a full day with me and he was rewarded with several nice fish like this dandy gill that was over 9.5 inches.

Ty also put in full day fishing, and I must say I was impressed with his willingness to stick with it. He caught a lot of nice gills, that big pike,a 3.5 pound Largemouth and just about had to be pulled off the ice when it was time to quit for the evening.

For some of the guys in the group, well they were happy watching the gills and pike on the MarCum OVS 560 underwater camera. They felt it was a lot like a video game trying to catch them when you can see them.

This last picture is Ty working some gills in shallow water with his LX-5. Even a guy from Nebraska that doesn’t get to ice fish very ofter could appreciate the MarCum LX-5.

I want to end by saying congratulations to my sister Stacy and my new brother-in-law Drew Anderson.