Action was no-go. The combined effort of about 25-30 anglers achieved nothing. Everyone I talked to had gone throughout the day without so much as a bite. The Vexilar and other sonar units were picking up fish but they just didn’t want to eat anything. I tried several locations zigzagging from the northern shore to the middle of the lake.
After several hours of drilling, dropping and waiting I concluded two things: The bite was not “on” and I did not have a magic key. The ice had a vast layer of crusted snow on top of it that was perfect for making igloos. Within a few hours I had mine ready to go hole drilled and all. Just in time too as the wind started picking up. It was cozier than expected but yet not quite comfortable enough. My Eskimo skills need some work for sure.
Rangers check Evergreen Lake and other popular ice-fishing destinations frequently. It does my heart good to see these folks out in force at any place and time. Better enforcement = better fishing. Park Rangers are 99.9% the best folks you ever want to meet in the wild. That remaining 0.1% is often a misunderstanding or folks just flat out breaking the rules (myself included in the fore mentioned item).
In closing this just may be my first “skunkaroo” post on the on the blogilicious (and one of the four or five goose egg trips in 2009). However I still managed to learn a lot on this trip. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together from recent trips I just may have managed to get most of the picture in focus. Next trip will be different…absolutely!
5 comments:
That ice shelter rocks! Mel over at blog cabin angler told me about your blog. You've got some good stuff! Check me out at Rick's Reel Adventures.
That is one fine looking igloo my friend! Very creative on your part, especially, when the fish are not cooperating anyway. I, actually, have fished Evergreen Lake a few times in the mid '70's. By the way, I agree with your thoughts on the fish patrol.
Dude, that's a fine picture of a cool little semi-igloo wind shelter, you've built there! I thought I was the only guy out there using such ingenuity. :-)
I pack a light weight square, aluminum bladed, snow shovel with me and cut uniform, easy fit, snow blocks and slabs in a snap. :-) Then you just toss a few shovels of looser, more powdery snow on the outside where the winds blowin' from, to fill in all the cracks. Done, and warm. Cheers! lb
maybe if you'd have spent more time fishing and less time playing in the snow you would have caught something. waste of time.
Thanks for the comments Richard aka frelkarox. Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all I guess. Thanks for stopping by.
If you ever decide to put some fish up on your blog or cover page you got going there...that would be sweet.
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