My plans for the near future is to set some traps on Tuesday of next week.  Once trapping begins it is an all consuming project.  Bob and I need to catch as many rats as we can and with our season already cut by 2 weeks it’s going to be tough to catch 500 of them little buggers.  I have a pond that I trap to help a little old lady keep the dam in place from being washed out by their tunneling activities and that should be open.  I will know next Tuesday.  I can also do some reconnoitering of the rest of the trapping areas while I’m out that way.

Snow drifts and ice are our enemy right now.

And so, since things are on hold, I’m going to go out and try what will most likely be my last ice fishing trip of the 2012-2013 ice fishing season.  Meeting up with Shipley and heading off to Lost Creek (I hope we can find it ;-)).  Pictures and the rest of the story to follow….

Bears Butt

Feb. 16, 2013

The rest of the story:

I got my butt kicked by Shipley yesterday at Lost Creek.  He caught 10 fish and I had 3 bites.  I lost 4 quarters to him and would have lost more had he not been using his two pole permit and caught 6 of his 10 fish on the pole that was not designated as the quarter pole.

It was hard to believe that we had almost the exact same setups and fishing within 10 feet of each other and he got the bites and I went skunked.  That’s fishin!

I got home around 1:30 and ate some lunch.  The day was just too pretty to unload the rig and call it an ice fishing season, so I called up Barney and guess what….He and Parker were just about to embark on an ice fishing day at Mantua…I bugged them to let me join them and they accepted.  I hurried up there and found them on the ice.

The ice on Mantua is almost a foot thick and no slush, which was a pleasant surprise to me.  We drilled a few holes and I quickly got a nice little trout onto the ice.  I had several more bites but couldn’t connect.  My guess was they were blue gills or perch.  We moved to a new location and drilled more holes.

For some reason Barney and Parker could not buy a bite.  The action wasn’t what you would call fast as we sat many many minutes without a touch.  We switched our baits from one thing to another and finally when the word came out that we would leave at a certain time, I put on a meal worm.

Parker said he had never caught a fish on a meal worm and that they only sold them because people like him were gullible enough to buy them, and every year he buys a package and then cusses because he did it.  I reassured him that they worked and that I would catch a fish on my newly baited set up.  He smiled.

It wasn’t long before my rod tip started to dance and up came a nice fat Blue Gill…There you go Parker….Meal worms work!

And then the magic stuff started to be shared by myself to my two fishing partners.  You have to look at the top of the 5 gallon bucket and envision a compass with its 360 degrees marked off….North is pointing toward North on the bucket and my pole was setting about 276 degrees.  Barney moved his.  Parker reluctantly moved his as well.  With all of us setting in the same relative position the clock caught up with us and we had to go.  No more bites were had.

But I leave you with this fact…always pay attention to “exactly” what the “catcher person” is doing and replicate his moves, his pole position on the bucket and every thing else that person is doing….it’s the only way you will catch fish when they are the only ones that seem to be having any luck.  Shipley was holding something out from me this morning and I have yet to figure it out…Oh Heck…It was right there in front of my face and I didn’t see it.  We were facing each other!  I should have turned my back to him!  Dang!

Bears Butt

Feb. 17, 2013