Dick Smiths Ice Fishing Reports Coming Soon

[DSmith]

Stay tuned for uncoming reports on Ice Fishing at Bay Store Camp the week of January 25th. New products and techniques will be employed then passed on. Of course, I will be sending updates from the Winter Fish Cleaning House as Frank will be sleeping by the time my report will be typed up. Tip Downs will be used as they made a big difference last year. Sorry Dick P., Dennis and Brett, someone has to do it and it might as well be me.

[Illinois Dennis]

Hey Dick, Hope you really wackem. Give us reports as you have time. Can you also confirm the whereabouts of Frankie, rummors abound as he has been laying low except for a few very brief e-mails on top secret stuff. I just figured he was extremely busy this winter. Laura did respond to one e-mail making sure that I knew they were still kickin.

[DSmith]

I know that I will see him at least 3-4 times a day. If he holds still long enough I will take a picture of him and paste it on the site. I do understand that he has been very busy and of course the cold weather does not help.

[Frank Walsh]

Posted for Dick Smith:


"This is a photo of John Hill of Valley City, ND, a good friend of mine, with
a 28 1/2" Walleye caught January 16th. He has set the bar high for my trip next
week. Competition is always good when no $$$ are involved. Great fish John."


Boy we sure got a lot of 27-29 inch fish this year, but this is the first picture submitted.

[Illinois Dennis]

I just hope he remembered to ring that walleye aka "Da Bell".

[Frank Walsh]

Mark Hohman's 28 1/2 incher.

[Frank Walsh]

Jeff Stone's 28.

[DSmith]

Boy does it feel good to be back at my second home again. The trip from Omaha went well and had dry roads most of the way. That was until we turned left at Jims Corner to eat at the North Point Restaurant on Sunday night. The roads there were quite slippery and snow covered which caused a little problem. My Denali made it through the turn OK but the Suburban decided to go into the ditch. By the time I dropped off my 3 at the restaurant and returned to the other vehicle, who did I see but Frank. He was to join us for dinner but had to work for it and pull the Suburban out of the ditch. No damage to the vehicle but we had fun making jokes at the driver. Great restaurant and highly recommend it to anyone. Then the ice road to Oak was something to behold. After all the warm weather and snow on top of the slush made the trip interesting and sloppy. Got the vehicles cleaned for nothing.

Today the fishing was spotty but we (8) still managed to catch approximately 91 Walleye and Perch. We did lot leave camp until 8 AM and returned by 5:15 because the whiteout conditions on the lake. The largest Walleye caught was 18 1/2" and largest Perch was 14". We consumed a few adult beverages and plenty of fish this evening. It will be nice to get some sleep and get ready for tomorrow.

It was a toss-up which method worked the best for catching the fish, deadstick or Jigging. They still like gold and pink colored jigs or spoons. Genz worms probably caught the most and best fish with the buckshot rattle spoon being the best in its class. I love my tip down!!! So simple and easy that even a caveman can use it. More tomorrow.

Thanks Frank for all the help.

[Illinois Dennis]

You haven't lived till you total your new vehicle within miles of getting to Franks. Frankee on the spot; not sure exactly the radius that he serves.... good times.

Nice first day report; keepem comin Dick and good luck.

[DSmith]

Second day completed and what a day the Lake of the Woods Triangle dealt us. The weather was beautiful and the wind did not blow until late in the day. The glistening of the snow on the trees and lake made a perfect backdrop.

We fished a different spot today and caught 15 keepers to take home for the freezer. The Tulipees showed up and made life interesting, especially when they smell so bad. No one really eats these things, do they? Mike did get a nice 30" northern that looked like it was full of Walleyes. 6# test line will see how good you are reeling them in. Once again, the largest Walleye was 18 3/4" and Perch was 14 1/2". A few of the houses were slow so the numbers were also off. We caught approximately 82 fish and have some nice ones to take home. Today we could not get a feel as to what they wanted but gold/pink spoons with long stinger hooks seem to be the ticket tipped with a minnow head. Dead sticking with white/chartreuse jigs produced quite will with a whole minnow hooked in the lips. We used Vexlars and Lowrance sonars to help with the bite. Many times they came from high in the water column traveling to the bottom. If you seen that happen, you could intercept them on the way down. We tried many other methods, including a plain hook with minnow but nothing worked any better than what I mentioned.

LOTW triangle you ask? Mike and Matt, father and son, were eating two different items and 20 minutes apart in two different houses and broke off parts of their tooth. The strange thing was it was the same tooth in their mouth. The dentist will be happy on Monday.

I was fishing falling asleep, during on of those quite moments, when a 14 1/2" Sauger came swimming by my hole on top of the ice. I grabbed it by the tail and could not find any hole from previous hooks. I did let him swim free as it might be an omen. Adult beverages did not impare this event.

Be careful of coordinates ######## - ########.

We shall see what tomorrow brings.

[DSmith]

Our third day of fishing has been completed and Lasagna was the fare tonight. Tomorrow fried Walleye.
The day started cold and beautiful sunshine but it did change around noon. Then the wind and snow nearly hid Oak Island to the north. The fish were still in limbo but we were able to catch approximately 76 fish with the largest being 27 inches caught by Dave. We caught our limit of keepers and several were released because of size limitations. The fishing really was the best 8-10 am then 4-5:30 PM. Finally the fish cooperated and started a good jig bite. I found that electronics were essential in getting them to move off the bottom then it was easy picking. Favorite lures today were Rapalla Shad (hot pink) and a gold Rapalla minnow in the medium size. Larger number 10 hooks were used as replacements on the center hook and a minnow head for smell. Dead sticking was tough but white/pink and white/green jig colors seemed to get the most action. Whole minnows lipped hooked and minnow tails worked good. We did manage to loose several large fish due to inexperience, I guess.
LOTW Triangle!! Bob lost a nice fish this afternoon due to his line getting cut by the ice. A few minutes later he had another bite and guess what? The fish had both his Jigs in his lips but it was his lucky day as 22 inches gets a free ride back to the lake. Then my rod box was missing when we got back to camp. Trusty Frank got on his snowmobile and found it in the road about a mile away. Broken box but everything inside was OK. Lesson learned was do not put rod box in the carrier on the front of the Bomber.

Sad day tomorrow as it is our last day. Then back to reality on Friday.

[dpear]

Nice reports Dick.Fun to read.:)

[DSmith]

Sorry about the late report as we had to get ready for the trip home then travel back to Omaha. Another reason is that our final fish fry for the week, Thursday, was interrupted with a work truck with a big trailer getting stuck on the incline to the cabins. It took two bombers and a stuck crew cab truck to pull it out. Frank was shaking to say the least. Maybe because the temperature was about 14 below.

As always, the fish reacted differently today than in the past 3 days. You might as well put your dead stick away. The best was jigging spoons with a rod in each hand. I still can't figure how to do that for a full day. The best jig for the day was a Do-Jigger, small size, with a silver and any other color. Blue striped worked the best and a green striped prizm also did well for me tipped with a small minnow head. For the best hookup I increased the size of the hook. Even with that we lost quite a few nice fish at the bottom of the hole. They will be there for someone else. Today we caught approximately 51 Walleye with the biggest being 24 1/2". Once again my Lowrance 520c rigged up for ice fishing proved to give me a lot of enjoyment. Trying to get the fish off the bottom and then getting them to bite was a challenge but I won most of the time. John, you are still the leader with the 28 1/2" but I was only behind by 4"

I want to thank Frank and Laura for another great time. It is not only the fishing that brings you back time and time again but the surroundings make the 11 hour trip worthwhile. We can't wait until our next adventure.

[Illinois Dennis]

Dick,
Great reports, great pictures and best of all.... sounds like another great trip for the group! Thanks for sharing the "secret" lures of the trip too- that helps a lot! Funny how things change day to day, enough to drive some bonkers.

Wonder what's up with the longer fish on the thin side? Growing length but not girth, they just look younger with the smaller heads too. New strain of eyes? Used to seeing broud shoulders on those bigger fish, like that 28" in the darker picture.... moose!

[DSmith]

Feel free to add any additional fishing information that will help all who look at this post. Time to watch all the superbowl shows.

[DSmith]

People were wondering about winter madness! Here is what Frank is doing in his spare time.

[Frank Walsh]

Berdean ("Red") Felske's 29" from last week.

[DSmith]

Super nice fish. The kind that should be measured to see if it made the 10# mark then released. Did Red ring the Bell as he should have?