Well, there is something about the challenge of fishing this time of year. It interests me deeply and the pull of the lake never diminishes with cold. The fact is, an empty lake with NO other folks on it feels special, almost like you booked the whole lake for yourself… doesn’t happen often to run for 8hrs without seeing another boat on the lake, but yesterday was one of those days.We knew it would be cold, a good test of the equipment in the extreme cold. It was -1 at house and -5 in Fairfax on way to the launch at 6am:) this was one of the top 2 cold mornings I have ever fished in a boat, if not the coldest.
Bottom line was only 2 issues occurred due to cold….one was frozen gas cap that required hot water to open and the other was frozen rigger booms that couldn’t be extended. Other than that the boat and equipment took the below zero “drop in” like a champ.
We motored across the flat lake with the sun comming up on a bluebird day and set a spread of riggers, slide divers and long line lead mixed in. We ran mostly spoons but mixed in a few pin minnows and a dodger and fly combo too. Spoons rulled the day, as did the slide diver sets again this trip.
We fished 15-45 down most of day, but dropped down to 80 a few times to test the bait ceiling with little results.
Slower bite today, for the better part of the morning we had more salmon than lakers which was nice to see… By 2pm the laker count had surpassed the salmon count again as usual.
Menu today consisted of fresh donuts and coffee, followed up by jumbo Costco hot dogs, and finished with sirloin tip steaks that were tender as butter… eating like this is the key to keeping us on the lake for more than 6hrs at a time
Didn’t find a spoon color pattern as it seemed many sets were getting hit with none hotter than others. No BIG big salmon today, but good fun and stories shared by the crew on a flat calm day. The cold was not even evident at all in the cabin, with the sun heating us up and the mr buddy on high the cab got over 75deg for most of the day. Very comfortable for such a cold day on the pond.
Fishdawg sent me pics of Of us taken from Essex NY while we were in the troll. Gotta love the towel catching any grease from the grill over the side…
Kind of surprised to see our lone tracks in the snow on the ramp the only ones at 330pm when we returned to the ramp… only one boat out of Converse today…
Thanks guys for hanging in on such a cold morning. Took longer than usual to build a crew with a 0deg start outlook, but you hung in and it paid off with a fun 8hr cruise…
Fish on!
