Today
Today's fishing trip was a little faster. We caught a ton of nuisance, 3" perch. We were trying to catch whitefish, but the hoards of mini perch wouldn't stay off our hooks.
Tom had found a school of kokanee, mid-range, in the water column. He managed to catch five kokanee. This was one of his things to cross off on his bucket list. The next thing on his list, is to catch a whitefish through the ice.
Slow
We went back to northwest Montana to catch a few more pike. I caught a small one right-off-the-bat... and that was it...no afternoon bite. Tomorrow, we will try a different lake for kokanee and whitefish.
Friends
We went to one of our local lakes to do a little trout fishing. We had met our neighbor there, Max, and his daughter, Sara. Sara is visiting her family and, of course, fishing. Great to have another girl on the "girl team." Sara had caught a nice, size trout and burbot was stealing bait, from Max's pole. We managed to catch eight trout for supper. Last time, we baked our filleted trout in butter and garlic. It was so delicious, we are going to do the same tonight.
Finally
We had, nothing, but rain...rain...and more rain. Feels like spring, even my flowers, in front of the house, think so. We decided to go for some trout, in one of our local lakes. Fishing was slow but managed to catch 5 for supper. With all the rain, the ice is 5" thick.
Pike
We decided to try for pike, north of Kalispell. Beautiful time out on the ice. We caught 5 and lost a few. The largest was 30". We caught one on a tip-up, with the secret weapon...hot dogs (bun length).
Local
The ice, here in far north Idaho is thick enough for us to fish. We have been fishing it for the last two weeks. I finally took a few pictures. This time, I have my own flasher. The line above the dark area is my jig. Once a fish comes by, there will be another line. Now to wait...
Ice
Yes, Ice. We went over to the north-west, Montana, side to check for ice. There is one, shallow lake that had potential for ice. The ice was 3" thick, near the ramp. It got thinner, further out.
We kept 9 pike, threw 5 back and lost 3. Not bad for first ice. I lost a nice one, but I'll catch him next time.
