There is nothing like a string of bad ice fishing seasons to make a hardwater junkie more thirsty for the next. Well, this winter was a sneaky good one. What appeared at first to be a repeat of last year's poor excuse for an ice season, turned into a long, prosperous one that is still going on as I type this mid-March. Save for an amazing lake trout road trip and a couple attempts for walleye, it was a season spent pursuing northern pike. While Connecticut's trout lakes are in the shitter, it's pike program is so good it's drawing anglers from all over southern New England, us included. This winter our crew iced some impressive toothy critters up to 22-pounds, all of which were released in hopes to be captured again in the future. This video represents well over a dozen long days on the ice boiled down into three minutes.
.jpg)
Two 50-Pounders in One Morning
55 minutes ago
You make that look almost sane.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you handline them in - is that typically how it's done, and if so, do you just have to apply "drag" with your hands when they make a run?
The bald eagle at the end was cool! Did it pick up a fish you left on the ice?
ReplyDeleteAndrew: yes, drag is applied with your fingers when fishing with tip-ups. Sometimes a pike runs so hard you can get cut from the line.
ReplyDeleteMark: the bald eagle ate a fish, but I'm not sure how it got there and I'm sticking to that story.