McGregor Area Fishing Bite is HOT 1.26.08

OK, I thought it was about time that I went fishing and post a report, as I do not get out ice fishing as much as I would like too or as much as I used to. Stacie and I took the weekend to head up to the family’s cabin near McGregor, MN and spend some time snowmobiling, ice fishing, and to just get away. We got up to McGregor around late morning on Saturday and after a bite to eat and a little time on the trails we decided to switch gears. I was excited to get Stacie and myself out on the ice fishing but after hearing the bartender say that fishing has been slow and her brother had caught 3 crappies the whole day on Friday, my outlook was not as bright. After some trail time our new focus was getting set up late that afternoon for some Walleye and Crappie action. These were our fish target of choice, but we would be happy with anything that wanted to pull on the other end.

So we were headed to a spot on the sleds with fish house, gear and Dog Rufus in tow, as we near the spot I thought I wanted to fish. However, my plans soon changed as we turned the corner and were greeted with a village of fish houses, people and trucks where I wanted to go. Traditionally there would be about 3-4 houses in this area every year for the last 10years. So knowing the lake fairly well, my mind shifted to a very close and adjacent transition area where I have taken quite a few walleyes in the past few years during the summer months. My thinking was the pressure from the spot near by would move those fish off that spot and would push them into my new spot where we had it pretty much to ourselves. We set up on a sand gravel transition that had a very steep break on it that went from 7-8 feet down to 15 feet fairly quick. The plan was to set up tip ups on the shallow part and about 10 yards away we set the shack up in 15 fow. Dropping the flasher down we immediately started to mark fish and our hopes began to rise.

I quick got Stacie set up with a jigging spoon w/ minnow head and the flasher as I set up tip ups. I came back and she had not gotten bit?? I changed thing s up a bit and went with waxies incase they were perch down there. Still nothing??? I changed her bait again to a little jig and fat head minnow and as soon as that minnow started to fall, I watched the flasher as fish started to rise to meet her offering and it was FISH ON. Up came a nice 10” Crappie. This is how the whole next hour and half would go as she could not get her bait to the bottom where the fish were showing up on the flasher. She put on a clinic as I as tending to northern’s on the tip ups. Finally I just left the tip ups out of the water and joined her as Crappie after Crappie hit the ice. That torrid pace slowed down as it got dark, but they would still show up about every 15 minutes and we would yank a few more to the ice.

The fish ranged mainly from 8.5-12 inches with a few smaller ones and one bigger one that went just about 14” that we ended up releasing to swim another day. We fished from 3:30 until about 7pm. When 7 pm rolled around we decided to call it quits, but the fish were still down there and still biting. We ended up keeping 15 crappies for a fish fry this week. Stacie lost 2 larger fish at the bottom of the hole that I’m guessing were walleyes as it was dark out and the action had slowed down. I’m not sure if the warm weather turned the fish on or it was location??? I think a big part of it was getting away from the crowd and if your marking fish, keep changing baits until you find something they like. We found small jigs like shown in the picture, seemed to work best. One jig is an old favorite from when I was about 10 years old fishing with my Dad and the other is a red glow Diamond Jig, by Custom Jigs & Spins. We tipped those with whole fatheads. These set ups produced all off our crappies except for one that fell victim to a red glow Demon jigging spoon tipped with a fathead head. The norhterns were also on the chew but I elected like previously stated, to leave them alone so I could concentrate on the crappie action. The last pic is a "VERY UNIQUE" snow sculpture Stacie and I found along the snowmobile trail on Sunday. It was great to get back out on the ice and catch some fish and doing it with my new bride made it even better. I’m already looking forward to next ice season in hopes to seeing a lot more “ICE TIME” as my schedule is booked the rest of this Winter with the 14th Annual Rooster Run, my Honeymoon, Deer Classic and snowmobile trips.

Good luck to the rest of you Ice Fisherman as this boy is dreaming of Open Water fishing!