Pike Slime and Chicken Legs

Having moved into our new home has its obvious perks. We have ample space to house anyone that is willing to make the trek north to visit us and share the variety of outdoor activities. Michael Parker asked me last summer if he could get a group of his friends up here to chase some fish on the hard water. With little to no coercion of the Mrs, we had a weekend set and they were going to make the trek up a day early. Friday the 10th could not come soon enough. I spent the week prepping gear and food for the six college guys that would be joining us. Thursday evening I grilled a boatload of chicken legs for lunch on the ice. When the first load of guys arrived it was a little before 1am, with the second truck about a half hour behind them. To say we were all jacked for the day was an understatement. We blasted out and were on the ice a little after 8:15am. The bay that always has guys in it was almost void of guys, with only one diehard far up into the bay. We set up camp and starting dropping our mine-field of tip-ups.

It took far longer than I had hoped before we hooked into a pike, but Trent stuck the first one, and the best one of the day.

We spent the majority of the morning hopping from hole to hole and watching the tippers.

We rotated guys on the tippers, and even survived the dozen or so tippers that Keaton was unable to land a fish on over the course of a couple of hours.

It was fantastic when he finally did land one so we could all have a chance again!!!

Through the morning I kept my eye on the guy on the interior of the bay, and whatever he was doing was on the ticket as he was putting a lot of fish in the bucket and was throwing back a fair number of walleyes. I told the guys to not get too close as to push the guy out as he was here before we were. As the morning wore on I was not the only one keying in on this guy as another truck just about ran over our tip ups to get close to the action. I had my eye on him as well. When the first guy finally had his fill and packed up, I wasted no time honing in on his spot. I sat down in one of the last holes that I saw him land a fish in.


It took me all of 5 minutes to land a HOG of a perch!

The other guy was after the perch and landed ten or so waldos while I was sitting there trying to get the attention of the other guys in our group. Mr. Blue pickup packed up his gear and left as he was not catching perch. He was not even out of the bay and I had our guys pulling their pickup in his place. We reset a bunch of our tippers and drilled some more holes. It didn't take long and we were on the fish! Walleyes and perch with an occasional flag here and there. It was a splendid afternoon indeed!!!

As seems to be the case with this lake, I did not want to miss the evening bite. These guys were here to fish so we stayed until dark. We took a great group sunset photo before the evening bite was in full swing.

We ended up doubling our walleye count by the time we called it to head home.

Upon arriving home, cold beer and hot food welcomed us with open arms. Rachel had a later day at work, so dinner was later than expected, but that allowed us to get the fish cleaning done so we didn't have to do it after gorging on Rachel's legendary chicken noodle soup. Having borrow a giant stock pot from the bar in Willow Lake, every time someone opened the door, a giant waft of soup filled the garage. It was divine torture. When the last fish was cleaned, Rachel's head popped in the garage and told us it was good to go!!!
We did indeed gorge ourselves on the largest batch of chicken soup I have ever seen.

I figured the guys would party hardy the rest of the night, but it did not take long for he numbers to fade and we had day one under our belts.




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