Back

 Back

     We went back to do a little more kokanee fishing.  Our flashers were lit up with fish, but they weren't biting.  We managed to catch 18 more kokanee, enough to make a canner load.

Kokanee

 Kokanee

     We decided to go, next door to Montana, to catch a few kokanee through the ice.  The south end just capped over, not long ago.  Our Marcum Showdowner fish finders (flashers) showed a lot of fish on the screen, but not many takers.  We ended up catching 35 for the canner.  The fillets were small and took up, only four jars.  I put them in the fridge and we'll go back tomorrow to finish up the canner load.  Hopefully we will catch our limit of 20 kokanee each.

Exploring

 Exploring

     We did a little exploring around northwest Montana.  The first lake we came to, we fished for pike.  We didn't get a bite but we did get a bite to eat.  While waiting for that tug on our line, we made a couple of fish sausage breakfast burritos on our Buddy Heater.

     The next morning, we decided to go further north to catch a limit of kokanee for the canner.  The weather channel and windfinder said it was going to be in the upper 20's and 6 mph winds.  Ha!  when we got there, it was about a 45-mph wind!  We went back to the hotel and went back, that afternoon.  The weather channel and windfinder said it was going to be about 5 mph wind.  When we got there the wind died down to about 20 mph.  We didn't have a shelter, but we did have out Striker Ice, ice suits.  With our backs to the wind, the wind and cold didn't bother us.  We marked a few fish but didn't get a bite.  

I marked three fish, on my Marcum Showdowner, but none would bite.

Sloppy

Sloppy

     All the heavy snow has slightly, pushed the ice down, causing water to well up through the holes.   The water mixes with the snow, making it a sloppy mess.  In the next few days, we are supposed to get about 12" of snow, then it turns to rain (January thaw).  In a couple of weeks, it will freeze, making good ice fishing.

     Tonight, was slow.  We caught one limit of burbot (6 fish).  We may, need to move further down the lake to fresh fishing grounds.

Snow

 Snow

     We went out to catch our limit of burbot (6 each) at our local lake.  We had to trudge through 8" of snow to get to our fishing area.  Yesterday dumped a ton of snow.  It started out slow until the 3:30 bite.  

Tom catching bait.

My new pole.

Seafoam green...my favorite color.

You need to use glow jigs and tails to catch burbot.

Quick

 Quick

     We caught our limit, quickly, yesterday afternoon.  I had a hot hole, next to me.  We managed to catch a few bigger ones, this time.  Nice day to be on the ice.