Gas for the trip:  $50

Fishing License that was only good for 2 days:  $15

ORV Sticker that was only good for 2 days (after I lost it):  $16.25

Enduring the stress of driving 3 hours on ice-covered roads:  $0

My wife’s first fish through the ice and her biggest fish ever:  Priceless

This past weekend, the wife and I, along with a few members of the rest of our family, took a trip Up North and tried our luck ice fishing on Houghton Lake.  The drive up on Friday night was insane – we witnessed many cars in the ditch, and endured some treacherous road conditions – but everything cleared up on Saturday and it made for some decent ice fishing weather.

We were a little disheartened, however, when we arrived at the DNR launch and noticed the lot was empty.  In my experience, normally a place like this is empty because of one reason:  no fish.  After going through all the work of loading quads, and enduring the nasty drive on the way up, though, there was absolutely no way we weren’t going to at least try.

With quads and snowmobiles unloaded – all 10 of them – ice shanties hooked up and attached, and gear loaded into sleds, we were off.  The trip across the ice was pretty interesting, but uneventful, and the first spot we fished was uneventful as well.  After a little over an hour of not even feeling a fish, we ate some lunch and debated what to do with the rest of the day.

Finally, we all decided that we would head to an area that produced for us last summer.  After setting up in the area, it didn’t take long until a guy in a shanty near us had his tip-up flag raised.  We felt pretty good about the spot after that, and it wasn’t too long before Justin’s tip-up caught the first fish of the trip – a respectable pike.

I decided that, even though the wife and I were originally targeting bluegills, we would switch it up, put a pike minnow on our teardrops, and see what happens.  We had a few minutes of frustration, because of the lack of fish, but we just enjoyed the time outside and eventually the fish gods smiled down on our shanty.

After hours of waiting, I look over and notice the wife start to move a little bit; and then she – in the calmest voice I’ve ever heard – says, “I think I got something”.  A quick glance at her rod and I knew she definitely had something, but then the line appeared to go slack and I figured whatever it was was gone.  Upon reeling up her slack, however, the tug on the line was proof enough for me that something was, in fact, still there.  She stands up, continues to reel, and I just instinctively grab the line by hand as well, hoping to help pull whatever was on the line through the hole.  I was glad I did, too, because as soon as we got the 21 inch pike above the hole, the line promptly snapped in two and I had to pin him to the ice so that he couldn’t wiggle his way back into the hole.

It was a very cool experience, and provided the wife with, not only her first fish through the ice, but also her biggest fish ever.  We celebrated, screamed from the blind that we were on the board, and proceeded to take pictures.  And, as you can see from her pinky position in the picture, she wasn’t very fond of how slimy pike can be (I know Jody will appreciate the picture).  It sure made for some laughs later, though, when we went through the pictures from the day.

The weekend was awesome, and we all enjoyed our 7 hours on the ice.  A few of us managed to land some fish, all of us enjoyed the time spent outdoors, and getting outside always makes for a great day……….even if I did get out-fished by everyone, including the wife.

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Walking on the ice has always felt unnatural to me; it always feels like something I shouldn’t be doing.  And as we rolled onto the ice on Saturday, it still felt odd….but I sucked it up, and pressed on.

My inaugural ice fishing trip took us to Duck Lake, near Springport, Michigan.  Duck is probably one of the best fishing lakes in southern Michigan, and since my sister and her boyfriend live on the lake, we headed there to see what we could pull through the ice.

Riding on the back of Jeff’s quad, with a sled full of gear in-tow, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t puckering just a little bit.  I’m not sure why it feels so strange to me, but it does.  Since there were trucks on the ice, though, I relaxed a little; and once I noticed the 9 inches of ice Jeff had to drill through to get to water, I relaxed even more.

Using Jeff’s hunting blind as a “shanty”, we started to setup.  Of course, the 20mph winds blowing across the ice didn’t help to make setup any easier, but it was nothing that anchoring the blind to a couple quads couldn’t fix.  And with that, it was time to fish.

This trip was actually quite the family affair.  There were 8 of us total – Jeff, Matt, Ron and his wife, my sister, Melissa and her boyfriend, Justin – all within hearing range of each other…… in three different shanties….. it was fun.

And now here comes the point that everyone has been waiting for:  What did Arthur think of his first ice fishing trip?  Honestly, I loved it!  We all had a blast hanging out, I managed to pull my first fish through the ice (there really is a fish in that first picture, even though it’s hard to see because of the lighting), and even though the fishing had slowed somewhat, I still had a good time.  Plus, ordering, and then eating a pizza in the shanty was just icing on the cake (they have a party store at the launch that sells pizza, and we had quads to make pick-up much easier, so we figured why not).

I could have stayed on the water all day and thought nothing of it.  It felt great to be outside, being able to see the fish in the “lighted” hole was definitely a one-of-a-kind experience, and I can’t wait until we get to go again.

And for anyone who truly knows me, they know what an incredible thing that is for me to say.

It was a great time, and I’m honestly sorry I haven’t been doing it until now.

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I’ve already said this before, but last weekend was probably the last time I’ll fish this year.  I could eat my words, but I have a feeling that it is true.  And if it was my last fishing trip of the year, I didn’t really end it on a good note.

We fished Higgins Lake; and while the lake is huge it doesn’t have much structure in it.  There are spots on the lake that are 30ft deep and you can still see bottom.  There are also spots as deep as 134ft; not exactly my style of fishing.

Despite all of that, though, we tried our luck in the morning, and never landed a fish.  Jeff managed to land a few rock bass, and my sister’s boyfriend landed a rock bass as well.  But the smallies, lake trout,  pike, and perch all eluded us.  If we had the right gear to be able to reach a certain depth, and do some trolling, the lake can provide some unbelievable fishing opportunities.  But without any of that gear, it made for some tough fishing.

The afternoon found us fishing on Houghton lake, which is south of Higgins Lake.  Houghton is actually much bigger than Higgins, but it actually has weed cover, and is only 22ft at its deepest point.  In fact, you can plot a path across the lake that would allow you to wade the entire thing.

The lake was way more my style of fishing, but despite trying my best to put a fish in the boat, I just couldn’t do it; must be the gypsy curse or something.  I guess it could have had something to do with the fact that I had to wait at the dock for a half hour or so while my cousin learned the hard way that you have to have the tether pushed ALL THE WAY in for the boat to start.  We learned that lesson.

Because of my lack of fish, we ended up losing heavily in the fishing tournament that day.  Jeff, Matt, and my sister and her boyfriend in the other boat, ended up tying; and with darkness falling, it had to stay that way.

I did end up landing a fish over the weekend……it had to be at my Father-in-Law’s pond, though.  I managed to catch a few there, and it helped to boost the ego a little.

On Monday night my ego was back in full force, though.  I’ll explain that in the post tomorrow.

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Normally this time of year I have completely switched to hunting mode, but since Jeff decided to acquire a new bass boat this late in the season, who was I not to turn down his invitation to do some fishing Tuesday night.

We headed out to our favorite fishing lake in the area – and the same one where he caught this bass earlier in the day without me – and tried our luck going after some more bass.  We also knew, though, that this lake holds some pretty good pike, and that it’s the perfect time of year to catch some big ones.

The fishing didn’t go quite as well as we had planned, but Jeff and I both managed to land a pike and a bass a piece.  My pike was pretty close to keeper, but not wanting to clean any fish that night, we put him back for someone else to catch.

It was different fishing this late in the year; it’s just not something I’m used to.  But we had a great time, and despite the cooler than normal temps, managed to put a few fish in the boat.

Jeff’s new boat is SWEET, and it’s too bad he got it so late in the year.  With bow season just around the corner, I’m afraid the boat will not get used much this year.  It will still be sitting there next year, though, and I’m sure we’ll have no problem taking it out and going after some big ole bass.

Maybe now we can convince Jeff to write up a post about his new boat.  I would, but considering I don’t know any particulars of the boat, hopefully he posts something himself.

Stay tuned for that!

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It started Friday night with a trip to Gander Mountain.  The two team members in my boat – my cousin and I – needed to gear up for the next day’s tournament; with a ton of rain in the forecast we both needed some rain pants as well as a couple lures we were short on.

The alarm went off at 5am on Saturday morning, and the weather at that time didn’t look too bad:  it was spitting rain a little, but overall I was pretty comfortable with the drizzle that was happening.  And since it wasn’t raining that bad we all decided that the fishing tournament was still on and headed to the lake…..and waited…..and waited some more.  We were all trying to assess the weather situation, because the farther south we drove the more lightning we saw – and lightning and fishing do not mix well together.

We waited at the boat launch for a half hour or so, and then decided to launch.  After fishing for about 20 minutes, and having one fish in the boat it started to downpour.  I buttoned down the rain jacket and kept on fishing……………and then it started to lightning again – and I’m talking cloud to ground nasty lightning.  The fishing tournament – at least the morning leg of it – was over.

My cousin and I headed back to the dock feeling pretty confident about the morning’s catch.  We figured having one in the boat after 20 minutes of fishing would put us in pretty good shape.  After getting back to the dock, however, we found we were two fish down already………to my brother of course.

It rained…….and rained some more….and rained some more.  Finally, about 4:30pm it started to let up, and the prospects of us getting back out for the afternoon leg of the tournament looked good.  Everyone was in the water by 5:45, and it was on for the next 4 hours or so.  Unfortunately for my fishing partner and me it was slow going at the start and we found ourselves in a huge hole – down 11 fish to 3.  We weren’t in last place, but we were still 8 fish down to the leaders with only a few hours left to make up for it…..but it just wasn’t meant to be.

The last two hours were the best fishing hours we had all day:  I landed a legal pike, plus a few bass, and my fishing partner added another pike, and one keeper bass to the total as well; in fact that keeper bass would be the winner of the biggest caught bass of the day, and make him a little richer.  Ever after all of our efforts, though, we still only managed to have 8 fish in the boat, five short of the 13 that would be the number to beat.

Of course my brother Jeff, and his fishing partner, Matt, left the winners of the first annual SimplyOutdoors fishing tournament.  It was close, with my sister and her boyfriend giving them a run for their money right up until the end, but ultimately Matt’s floating Rapala came through and caught the thirteenth fish.  Dirt Bags!

It made for an awesome day on the water, and despite losing the tournament I still had an awesome time.  I caught the biggest pike I’ve caught in years, we broke in my cousin’s new Nitro fishing boat, and he managed to catch his first top water fish ever!  Plus we made some other memories that will last a lifetime – one having to do with leaving the trolling motor down when we were trying to head to another spot.  That is a story for a whole other post, though.  Man did we laugh our butts off.

I guess I have to give props to Jeff and Matt for winning the tournament.  And if you ever wonder what you go through in order to win tournaments such as these just take a look at Matt’s face in that picture.  It can be stressful trying to win these tournaments, and you can see it written right across his weird looking face.  Of course I’m sure his face doesn’t look like that now, since his wallet is a little fatter then it was before.

I hate losing!

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