Welcome to the Rock

The reports of tagged fish and prizes intrigued us enough to take a small armada up to Rockport to see if we could ice a couple fish.  I took my 5 year old and many others in the group had their kids along as well.  It was 2 degrees outside when we arrived to start drilling holes.  The kids had a blast going around on the ice with the sleds and even found a hill that entertained them for a long time.  It was good that they had fun, because the fishing was DEAD!  Out of 8 fishermen, most with 2 rods, only two fished were iced.  But one was a fish to remember.

Coop was fishing next to me and in a split second his rod completely disappeared!  It seriously didn't even bobble at all.  It was there, and a split second later, gone down the hole.  We sat and fretted about how big of a fish it must have been that had taken his rod that quickly without even a chance to grab it.  After a couple hours later, Coop finally had another hook up.  As he was bringing the fish up through the hole he noticed line hanging down below the fish.  As he continued to pull that line up.....low and behold, it was his rod!  What are the chances?  We all got a kick out of it and thought it was pretty cool.  Made for a fun story out of a pretty terrible day of fishing.

Here is a picture of the monster that was still hooked to his other ice rod.

Hard Deck

Each type of fishing has its allure, but something about the hard deck that is extra fun.  Part of that is the ability to take out some of the younger of the next generation.  Tyson, Blake, Mike and Aiden hit the ice today and had a great day.  Close to 100 fish were iced and a few nice tigers and cutts were caught, including this guy that Aiden helped his dad bring through the hole.

Aiden was able to snooze through some good action in the tent when the wind picked up some as well.

Ice Fishing

Well, a handful of us have caught the ice fishing bug this winter.  And to be honest, I don't know what took so long?  It has been a blast to get out on the ice and catch some really nice fish so far.  We went for a trial run last weekend and caught our fair share of small, planter rainbows.  Enough to wet our whistles, but also enough to give us the desire to get right back out at it.

These first two are what we cut our teeth on last weekend.






Now for the epic day.  We headed out early Saturday Morning.  We hit the ice about 0730 and it was -10 degrees when we arrived.  Good thing Blake had just picked up a sweet new ice hut, it was a life saver early in the morning!  Had some wind blowing, but the sun was out and it was clear blue skies.  The wind kept the temperatures low, but the shelter minimized the conditions.  We had "one of those days"!  Overall between 4 of us we iced well over 100 fish.  We caught rainbows, cutthroats, and tigers.  Some of the tigers were really nice fish.  It was a great time and enough to get you hooked on ice fishing forever.  Here are some pictures from the day.

It was a cold one...

Tyler let Curt hold one of his fish for a picture. That was nice of him.