Hard Water

Streams were turbid for a while; opted to spend some outings at home looking for meat.

Special reg on this water is three kept trout per angler.

These stocker bows move around in giant wolf packs.  They have no experience foraging for food.  In their guts you may find pieces of bark, leaves of aquatic macrophytes, other misc organic matter.  They do strike jigging spoons and eat minnows though.

All about the same size: 12 inches give or take.

Main Christmas present; got its first run.

Razor.  Makes job easier for sure.

Manhattan style chowder.  In the pot is tomato base, carrots, celery, potatoes, garlic, onion and spices.  Skillet is cooked pig from Kellogg MN.  Trout fillets cut into approx 1.5 inch pieces.  After adding the meat to the soup, the fish was fully cooked in about ten minutes.  This was a double batch.  1.5 pounds sausage and nine trout.  Very hearty; really good soup.

Some things you won't find in our arsenal include ice fishing shelters, power augers, much gear specifically dedicated to ice fishing.  What we have we've come by. That jigging stick pictured was found in a dumpster and that old junk bobber was in a big box of misc fly lines that was gifted to me.  Won't ever care about appearances while ice fishing; a guy can only have so much gear for so many facets of hunting and fishing.  Further, the gear pictured here is sufficient for this setting.  I don't think a nickel more need be spent to catch these trout.  Excepting $1.35 for each half scoop of crappie minnows.

Last outing we went sixty minutes and landed only one fish.  I walked over to look in some other holes maybe thirty yards away.  I could see trout down through the holes at my angle as I approached.  We moved.  Then caught eleven trout in about twenty minutes; picked up and went home.

I think we got forty one rainbows in three outings, of which we kept eighteen.  Two limits.  Minutes from the front door.  Not a bad holdover option.  The one time I was out with a friend and not my two sons, some guys from Midwest Outdoors came by and filmed a bit of capture.