I caught 5 smallies all under 12″ and a northern at 17″.

Exciting, I know. I’ve recorded the details of the outings for my own records, but I won’t bore you with them here. Day 6, however, got very interesting. Stay tuned tomorrow for that story.

In the meantime, check out this cool pic I took one night. My camera didn’t do the scene justice, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless.

Related posts:

1. Gunflint Trail 2010: Days 7 & 8
2. Gunflint Trail 2010: Day 1
3. Gunflint Trail Scenic Byway
4. Goals for 2010
5. Expect the Unexpected

We drove up to my in-laws’ cabin late Friday night to avoid traffic. We didn’t get in until 2am Friday night, so Saturday morning, I decided not to get up early to hit the water. Besides, I didn’t know if my father-in-law, Ken, had a boat tied up to the dock and ready.

It wasn’t until late afternoon that I would get a chance to get on the water. Since I had such a great experience float-tubing with my brother, I brought my tube up to give it a try on Ken’s lake. While everyone else went swimming in the lake, I took my tube out into the bay to try my luck. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so the bite was tough. I mostly used the green watermelon jig and pig, but also threw a bubble gun fluke for a little while. I was out for about two hours without a single bite.

I actually did feel something that felt like a bite at one point, but I cast back to the same spot and decided it was just the contour of the bottom that caused the tick-tick-tick.

Even though there was no action, it was fun to be out on the lake in the tube. And it wasn’t my last.

Date: 8/21/2010
Time: 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Body of water: Poplar Lake
Location: Gunflint Trail, MN
Weather Conditions: sunny

After dinner, Ken and I hit the lake in his pontoon at about 7:30. I suggested we head to Voyager’s bay because I had such good success in the spot last year. Halfway there, the pontoon motor quit. As amazing as Ken is with repairs and such, sometimes he has a lapse. We had run out of gas.

I held the gas can at an angle so we could try to motor back, but we only got halfway back before the motor quit again. Ken paddled us back while I cast my jig and pig, but I didn’t get any hits.

We filled the gas tank and headed back out. We actualy made pretty good time and only lost about 20 minutes through the whole ordeal.

We made it out to the bay and came up to the dock where I caught my 27″ northern last year. I hit it with a bubble gum fluke while Ken tried a white one. Neither of us got a bite, so we headed further into the bay.

Ken tossed his fluke next to a fallen branch and hooked into a fish, but after a few seconds, he lost it. He told me to cast into the spot and sure enough, it hit me. But when I set the hook, nothing was on the other end. When I reeled in, the swivel clip I had attached my fluke to had failed and was open.

I quickly retied a new swivel and attached a new bubble gum fluke while Ken backed off the area. When I was ready, we coasted back in. I tossed the fluke back to the spot and halfway back on the retrieve I saw a swirl in the water. I didn’t feel anything on the line, but set the hook anyway. Sure enough, there was a fish on the line. It was a 17″ Northern.

Species: Northern Pike
Size: 17″
Lure used: bubble gum super fluke

We moved further into the bay and on one cast straight to the end of the bay, Ken got another hit. And again, he lost it. I tried the same spot, but whatever it was wasn’t interested in my fluke.

Along the way, I switched to the jig and pig on my baitcaster a few times, but as it got darker, I stopped using it because my accuracy is not as good as with a spinning reel as yet.

We went to a bay on the other side of the northern dock and kept casting well after dark, but we wouldn’t get another hit the rest of the night. The moon was very bright, so we were able to stay out a lot longer than usual. We finally gave up when I couldn’t see the splash of my lure after the cast.

Related posts:

1. Gunflint Trail 2010: Days 7 & 8
2. Bounty Hunting
3. Gunflint Trail 2010: Days 2-5
4. Expect the Unexpected
5. Yet Another Northern

After my initial success from the night before, I had high hopes the next morning. I woke up at 7:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to get up. My brother repaired my scum frog before we went to bed, so I cast with that for about a half hour with no bite when my brother came down to the dock. We decided to take my dad’s canoe out on the lake.

I sat in front and stuck with the scum frog. My first cast to try to get under an overhanging tree branch met with the tree branches before it nicked the water. My brother laughed, but turned into a “whoa” when a fish tried to nab the frog. Before bringing in the canoe to retrieve my frog, he tossed his plastic craw into the spot to try to catch the offender. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t interested in my brother’s craw. We got my frog free and continued down the shore.

My brother remarked that he thought it was too late in the morning for the scum frog. I (obviously) begged to differ. But he said he would switch to a popper if I caught anything. Not more than a few casts later, the surface exploded around my frog. I paused, then set the hook and pulled in a muskie. My brother couldn’t believe it. It turned out to be 23″.

Unfortunately, with the way it got hooked and with all the thrashing, the girl was pretty wounded by the time I was able to get it back in the water. I tried to revive her for a good 20 minutes, but she couldn’t swim away, so I decided to keep it. When my dad saw it later, he said it was a Northern. I looked again and he was right. I didn’t even think there was a single Northern in our lake, so my brother and I just assumed it was a muskie.

Species: Northern Pike
Size: 23″
Lure used: chartreuse scum frog

By the time I got to fishing again, my brother had gone to a popper and back to his plastic craw. The wind had picked up, so I put away my scum frog and put on a white pearl super fluke. About a dozen casts later, I caught a nice 13″ largemouth bass. My brother has teased me over the years for being a one lure wonder, but when I caught a fish before he did, he said, “I can’t believe that thing works.”

Species: Largemouth Bass
Size: 13″
Lure used: white pearl super fluke

We worked the shore West a bit more, but headed back toward our dock because our California cousin wanted to come out as well. We were working the East shore and got some bites, but nothing we could boat when he showed up on the dock. My brother decided to work on getting our bass boat ready and let our cousin and I go out on the canoe. My son wanted to join us so he sat in the middle.

We were out for about a half hour before my son wanted to go back. But during that time, I landed a small muskie (a real muskie this time) on my super fluke. My cousin threw a white spinnerbait, chartreuse spinnerbait, and orange/brown spinnerbait with no luck.

Species: Muskie
Size: 18″
Lure used: white pearl super fluke

My brother needed help with our bass boat, so we quit for the morning. It was a good start to the Saturday. There was plenty of more fishing to do and we did a lot of it. Afternoon and evening stories coming soon. Stay tuned. It will be worth the wait.

Related posts:

1. Immediate Success
2. Afternoon Success
3. Awesome Evening Success
4. Memorial Weekend 2010, Day 1
5. Bounty Hunting

My phone rang at 7am Sunday morning.

“Hello, ” I said groggily, knowing full well who was on the other end.

“Let’s go!”

It was Mark. Saturday, after our outing, I asked him if he was going out Sunday. He said to have my phone close by. Frankly, I didn’t think he would go that morning. Saturday night I had gotten all my stuff ready to go out to the 22 acre lake I’ve been wanting to hit lately.

“Give me 15 minutes.”

Fifteen minutes later, I walked out my front door to Mark and his boat parked in front of my driveway. We headed to Bald Eagle, but the parking lot was all full. Mark theorized there was a muskie tournament on the lake for muskie opener weekend. So we headed to White Bear Lake instead. There were plenty of spots open there.

For the three hours we were on the water, we hit 6 spots:

Spot #1:
Mark called this Mahtomedi Bar. It was a bar that ran across the lake East to West on the Southern end of the lake. We tried lindy rigging for walleye, but weren’t getting anything. After 30-40 minutes, we decided to start casting.

Spot #2:
We headed West to the docks and Mark started casting with a chartreuse/white spinnerbait and I picked up a bubble gum super fluke. On my third or fourth cast, my line became very hard to reel in. I set the hook and… Fish on! After reeling a few feet, it jumped. It was a bass. In the net, I thought it was about 16″, but it only measured in at 14″. Not a pig, but a really nice fish.

Species: Largemouth Bass
Size: 14″
Lure used: Bubble gum super fluke

A few casts later, I felt some ticks, but I didn’t feel any weight on the line. When fishing with texas rigged super flukes, always wait for the weight. I tried to keep my cool and kept retrieving as I normally would. Then I felt another tick-tick tick, but still no weight. A few more feet of retrieve and finally I felt some substance. I set the hook and pulled in a 21″ northern. I decided to keep it for pickling.

Species: Northern Pike
Size: 21″
Lure used: Bubble gum super fluke

My fluke was pretty damaged, so I got a new one and set it up. A few more casts and I had another fish on. This time it was a 22″ northern. I kept that one as well. Three fish in a span of about 15 minutes!

Species: Northern Pike
Size: 22″
Lure used: Bubble gum super fluke

The new fluke was beat up again, but before I could get a new one on, I realized I had committed a cardinal sin for anglers. I ran out of bubble gum flukes! I couldn’t believe it. (Well, actually, I could because I hadn’t been having much luck with them lately, so I didn’t feel the need to keep a supply on hand. Silly me.) I put on a baby bass color instead, but after a dozen casts and no action, Mark said I should switch to the pearl white package I had brought along. I agreed.

White pearl on and not more than a few casts later, I got ticked again. But this time, the fish never grabbed on, so I couldn’t set the hook. However, I was to hook a small bass that shook himself off when he got near the boat.

Mark wasn’t getting any action, so I offered him a fluke. He said no. I was surprised Mark was so one dimensional that day. He usually switches up if nothing is happening for him. But it would pay off.

It started to slow down for me, but then started to pick up for Mark. He caught a northern about the size of my two. And shortly after, a nice bass at least the size of mine. Then it got quiet for both us. So Mark decided it was time to try a new spot.

Spot #3:
We motored across the lake to try the docks on that side. I got a couple of ticks, but nothing bit hard enough to try a hook set. Mark was quiet as well. We weren’t there very long before we moved on.

Spot #4:
We headed back across lake a bit further North than our other catches. On the way I looked at my damaged bubble gum flukes and found one with the nose fairly in tact. I was able to rehook it to use at our new destination.

The weeds were really dense and thick here. You could see the difference in color of the water from all the weeds far out into the lake. Again we hit the docks. I landed an 11″ largemouth and Mark landed another northern. But there was nothing else.

Spot #5:
A while later we motored to a point that was under water a few years ago, but was now exposed due to the low water levels. There were a couple of buoys warning boaters of shallow water. Mark got a phone call, but I was casting. We had just passed the second buoy when I cast into the shallows and felt something heavy on my line. I set the hook and it wasn’t just heavy. It was HEAVY. I heard Mark tell the person on the line that I just got one on and he got off the phone. I was holding the line high as it was going over the back of the boat and over Mark’s head. I must have let off the pressure just a bit as I tried to move it to the side of the boat and all of a sudden the weight lightened up. I knew immediately what happened. I reeled in and just had weeds on my fluke. The nose was all torn as if it had been pulled down on the hook.

Mark believed it was a muskie. I tended to agree with him. Whatever it was, it was BIG. It had to be 60″ plus! I’m just kidding of course, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was a muskie near 40″. But we’ll never know.

I then had to switch back to a white pearl fluke.

Spot #6:
It was getting late, but we headed over to another shallow point. We went over to the North side and could see a steep drop off under the water from the sandy shore. As we were casting, Mark saw a large bass cruising along the bottom part of the ledge exactly where you’d expect to find a fish. He pointed it out to me and I saw it just as it was passing me. I threw my fluke ahead of it hoping to get a strike. Nothing. Mark then saw another bass off his end of the boat.

This was a rare opportunity to try something to see if it worked since you don’t usually know if there are even fish around what you throw, let alone if they are interested. I put on a blue jig and pig and threw it parallel to the ledge and also across it toward a dock. I tried bouncing it up and down near the bottom as well as using it as a swim jig. Neither techniques produced a strike. Mark didn’t get a hit on his spinnerbait either, but he saw two more bass.

After about twenty minutes, we decided to call it a day. And a good day at that.

Related posts:

1. Walleye Frenzy
2. Slow Night
3. Expect the Unexpected
4. Morning Success
5. Neighborhood Outing

Dan and some buddies were up in the Boundary Waters ice fishing. (For you non-Minnesotans, the lakes on the border between Minnesota and Canada are often referred to as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). Many Minnesotans shorten it to simply, “the Boundary Waters.”) They had several holes in the lake with poles and tip ups manning each.

One of the holes that had a pole propped in a snowbank got a bite while they were tending to one of the other holes. The fish was so big and so fast that before the two had a chance to react to the strike, the pole disappeared down the ice hole!

A few minutes later, about a 100 ft away one of the tip-up’s flags went up. They went to grab it and found a fishing line attached to the end of the line. They pulled up the line and found the fishing pole they had just lost. Better yet, the fish was still hooked to it. Dan’s buddy reeled in the waterlogged pole and found a 14-lb Northern Pike at the other end!

The hole they drilled was a hand auger hole, so it’s smaller than one created by a gas auger. They used some leather gloves to squeeze the monster out.

This story just goes to show that anything can happen when you’re out on the ice. Ice fishing isn’t just for panfish.

Related posts:

1. First Ice Fish
2. First Ice Skunk
3. Ice Fishing Equipment
4. Extreme Ice Fishing
5. Another Good Morning of Ice Fishing

Welcome to 2010!

The beginning of each year brings New Year’s resolutions. I’m not much for resolutions as they tend to become broken promises. However, goals are more realistic and give you something to strive for. Here are mine for 2010:

• Fish 40 days out of the year (28 in 2009)
• Have patience to try new lures and new techniques
• Start float tubing
• Catch an average of 1.5 fish per day (1.04 in 2009)
• Catch an 18″ Smallmouth Bass (2009 best: 15″)
• Catch an 18″ Largemouth Bass (2009 best: 17″)
• Catch a 30″ Northern Pike (2009 best: 27″)
• Catch a 20″ Walleye (only one in 2009)
• Catch a 32″ Muskie (none in 2009)
• Catch a keeper ice Walleye or ice Northern (none so far)
• Qualify to be a Master Angler in Minnesota

If I can accomplish 6 of the goals above, I will consider it a successful year. If you have any tips to help me accomplish these goals, please post a comment or drop me an email. I’m always looking for ways to improve my skills.

Happy New Year!

Related posts:

1. Year in Review: 2009
2. Fishing 2010: Day 1
3. Poplar Lake Fishing Report
4. Gunflint Trail 2010: Days 2-5
5. Morning Success

Days Fished: 28
Fish Caught: 29
Locations Fished: 7
Patterns Fished: 6
Most fish caught in one day: 3 on June 14th

Northern Pike: 10
Smallmouth Bass: 9
Largemouth Bass: 7
Walleye: 1
Muskie: 0

These probably aren’t very impressive numbers to you hard-core anglers, but I’m happy with them. Of course I would have liked to catch more (and bigger) fish, but the best part for me is that I was able to get out 28 days out of the year. Most years, that’s barely in the double digits. I hope to be on the water (or ice) a lot more often in the coming year.

One non-fishing stat for 2009 is that I popped 7 bunnies this year. We have a lot of rabbits in our neighborhood and they wreak havoc on our gardens. I bought a pellet gun in the fall of 2008 and started dispatching the pests last Spring. We even made some hossenfeffer for our neighborhood to try at our wild game feast. I hope to eliminate more of these rodents in 2010.

For this, my last post of the year, I would like to thank all my readers for making my little blog much more successful than I ever expected when I started this adventure. And thank you to all those fellow bloggers that blogrolled me. If I didn’t return the favor, please let me know and I’ll correct that travesty immediately.

In 2010, I hope to bring you many more pictures of big lunkers, and hopefully more often.

May your lines be tight, your live wells be full, and your camera shutter be clicking often throughout 2010.

Related posts:

1. Goals for 2010
2. Poplar Lake Fishing Report
3. Good Week of Fishing
4. Neighborhood Outing
5. Review: Zoom® Super Fluke®

The results are in. And nobody was voted off!

After letting our Northern simmer and stew in pickling brine for the minimum 8 days (we were impatient), we finally got to try some. They turned out great! The taste and texture was just like pickled herring.

The difference was that our pickled Northern, especially in the smaller pint jars, was a bit more sour than store bought pickled herring. My stomach wasn’t used to it, so I couldn’t eat too much in one sitting–even though I wanted to. But for others that tried it, the sourness didn’t bother them. The fish in the bigger half gallon jars was more palatable. It could be the extra fish in the bigger jar absorbed more of the vinegar.

The other difference was that our pieces were bigger. A lot bigger. Next time we’ll have to make sure we cut the chunks smaller. The fillets from my 27-incher didn’t help. They were too thick (see below).

The spicy version didn’t turn out that spicy. It did, however, have a depth to it that the non-spicy version didn’t have. It had an extra tang. Next time we’ll have to add more red jalapeño peppers. Or plan ahead and buy some chili peppers. The red jalapeños where nice, though, because they added some color to the mix.

If you’re new to eating pickled fish, you should know that you need to eat them with crackers. The cracker adds a crunchy texture that adds to the firmness of the fish.

Take a piece of fish, some onions, and pop the whole thing into your mouth at once. Don’t be shy. Everyone will be doing it this way. I would recommend a more hearty cracker like Breton rather than Ritz. The Ritz add a sweetness, which compliments the sourness of the pickling brine, but they are on the smallish side and can crumble easily. I like the heartier cracker because it adds a more wholesome, nuttier taste. The crackers are a bit bigger, so if you don’t have a big mouth like mine, it could be harder to take all in one bite, but at least your piece of fish will fit on it without a problem.

Overall, we’re very happy with how it all turned out. We’ll definitely be making more next summer. I’m happy that I now have a reason to take all those vicious Northern out of my father-in-law’s lake.

Related posts:

1. Pickled Northern – Steps 3, 4, and 5
2. Pickled Northern Pike Recipe
3. Pickled Northern – Step 1
4. Pickled Northern – Step 2
5. Yet Another Northern

Pickled Northern

Step 1:
Cut 60 to 75 bite size pieces of fish
One cup of non-iodized salt to 1 gallon jar 1/2 full of water
Add fish until jar is full
Let stand for 48 hours

Step 2:
Pour off salt water, rinse
Soak fish in white vinegar for 24 hours

Step 3:
Drain vinegar off – discard
Boil together for 5 minutes the following ingredients:
1 1/2 cup of sugar
3 cups of white vinegar
4 bay leafs
1tsp whole all spice
3 tsp mustard seed
1 1/2 tsp whole black pepper
6 to 7 red peppers or whole chili peppers
Let cool at room temp – Make sure the brine is cooled down before adding items below or your meat will not be firm !!!!!

Step 4:
Add to brine:
2 cups white wine (White Port Wine)
2 sliced onions
Add fish to solution

Step 5 :
Let Stand in fridge for 8 to 10 days before eating

Pickled Northern
Northern Pike

Related posts:

1. Pickled Northern – Steps 3, 4, and 5
2. Pickled Northern – Step 2
3. Pickled Northern – Step 1
4. Pickled Northern – The Result
5. Recipe: Homemade Chicken Stock

Boil together for 5 minutes the following ingredients:
1 1/2 cup of sugar
3 cups of white vinegar
4 bay leafs
1 tsp whole all spice
3 tsp mustard seed
1 1/2 tsp whole black pepper
6 to 7 red peppers or whole chili peppers
Let cool at room temp – Make sure the brine is cooled down before adding items below or your meat will not be firm !!!!!

She made two versions: one spicy and one non-spicy. We used pickling spice instead of the bay leaves, all spice, mustard seed, and black pepper. We wanted to use chili peppers as called for, but couldn’t find fresh ones in bags less than 3 oz, so we used four red jalapeño peppers instead. My wife cut them cross-wise to make the circle shapes for aesthetics.

Spicy pickling brine.

Non-spicy picking brine.

I was there for step 4:

Add to brine:
Add 2 cups white wine (White Port Wine)
Add Sliced 2 onions
Add fish to solution

Our local liquor store was out of port, so we just used plain white wine.

Pile ‘o onions.

Pickling brine with white whine added.

The last part of step 2 was to drain off the vinegar the fish soaked in. You may notice in the picture below that the chunks clumped together (the right edge is in the form of our container). We used a crock pot insert to do our main batch because that was the only gallon container we could find. As a result, many of the pieces didn’t appear to get exposed to the vinegar like they should and didn’t look “cooked.” If you notice some of the pieces weren’t completely white like the others.

In this step 4, we packed those pieces in with the “cooked” pieces and in hindsight we probably should have checked them to see if the bones disintegrated. I hope they won’t be a problem. For future batches, we will probably stir them a few times during the 24 hour vinegar process.

Our smaller batch was in a two quart glass measuring bowl and seemed to turn out much better.

Drained fish chunks.

The directions above simply state to “Add fish to solution.” I’m not sure if they were expecting the whole mixture to sit in the gallon container in the fridge for step 5, but we packed the fish into jars.

My wife layered fish, then onions, then added some brine to cover. The process was then repeated until the jar was full. She then stuffed in a bit more until the fish fit snugly, but not crammed tight.

My wife tells me that the phrase “packing pickles” comes from cramming your soon-to-be-pickled food of choice together into jars as it’s supposed to help in the pickling process. Having them just float around in the solution isn’t good enough. She’s not sure what this actually does to help, but given her family’s canning tradition, it would be unwise not to trust her.

We got all our fish into two half gallon jars and four pint jars–exactly the amount of solution we started out with. We thought for sure we’d run out of the brine because there seemed to be very little left when we started on the last half gallon jar. But we even had a few chunks and brine left over to do a tiny test tupperware full of it.

Start of a pint jar.

Finished non-spicy pint jar.

Finished spicy pint jar.

The Pickled Northern Factory

Layering in the half gallon jar.

Mostly filled half gallon jar.

Completed spicy half gallon jar.

Finally, step 5:

Let Stand in frig for 8 to 10 days before eating

Packed jars of pickled northern ready for step 5.

The jars are now in our fridge. I’ll let you know how they turn out in 8-10 days.

Related posts:

1. Pickled Northern – The Result
2. Pickled Northern Pike Recipe
3. Pickled Northern – Step 1
4. Pickled Northern – Step 2
5. Yet Another Northern