About noon or so, up pulls this red truck into my driveway.  Actually up backed this red truck into my driveway and out of it came Weasel, Austin and Brian…they were on their way ice fishing and needed to borrow some of my stuff.  I had been invited, but decided to stay home because of “stuff”….you know…”stuff”.

Well, they took the things they needed and headed off.  Soon after they left, Winemaker came home from what she was doing.  Her first comment to me was, “Why didn’t you go ice fishing”?  My response, “Because there is ‘stuff’ that needs to be done”.  “What stuff”? was her response.  I had no answer.

Almost immediately at that, my phone rang….it was Weasel…Hey!  Dad, you are missing it…We have caught 10 fish already….You need to be here…I’ll see about that with your mom…maybe I will come up, maybe not.

I turned to Winemaker and said, That was Brandon and they are catching fish like crazy, do you mind if I go?   Not at all, I thought you would go while I was gone earlier……

I’m all over this now.  A quick change of clothes, throw stuff into the truck and then realize we should probably eat lunch.

So we had a great lunch of leftovers and then I was outahere!

By 1 p.m I ‘m on the ice with them and they have a BUNCH of fish laying there.  KEEPERS!  And all bluegills!  Half the size of dinner plates.  I have not seen bluegills so big in a long time.  I’m excited to get into the water and they have drilled a hole and cleaned it for me…I told them they only invited my for my quarters.  And was quickly told there was not any betting going on, just fish catching.  Too fast of action!

So, I dropped in with my usual….nothing….in the mean time, they each catch a fish….I stay with my usual…nothing.  How high up?  One crank….I drop down and one crank it….nothing.  They each catch another fish….OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…..I see that they each have the “secret lure” on!  I pull up and grab my pole with the secret lure and bait up!

I drop the secret lure in and hit the bottom, one crank…BAMMMM!  Fish on!

Of course the fish is small, but you get the idea!  Sometimes you have to sort through the small ones to get the keepers!

This guy was about 8 inches long and didn’t have enough meat on its bones to make a bite for a meal and so it went back.  LOTS of them went back!

And when we got back to the truck two hours later, there were at least 25 keepers in the bucket and Austin was about to have his best fish meal ever!  Fresh caught Rocky Mountain Blue Gill!

As you can see from the picture it looks like the “secret bait” is a whitish blob.  You can pick those up almost anywhere good fishing stuff is found!  (smiley face)

I only fished for 2 hours and had a blast.  I probably caught 10 or 15 fish and only one keeper.  But everyone around us caught fish.  Even those without the secret lure!  So, don’t think that just because you don’t have one of the secret lures you can’t catch a fish or two, don’t let that stop you from going fishing!  DO!  There are only so many more days of ice and then we will have to wait until next December to enjoy it again!

Happy Fishing…Oh, we were at Mantua!

Bears Butt

January 24, 2014

Fish finders!

There are all kinds of devices out there to assist fisher people (men, women, kids) catch fish.  I’ve shown you a few lately and will continue to show you new stuff as I encounter it.  The latest thing is something I was telling Weasel about but I could not remember what it was called.  I found it again today, but unfortunately there have not been any Youtube videos posted, so, you will have to copy the web link and paste it on a new tab in order to see what it is all about.

It’s called “The Fish Elevator” and you can order yours on

http://www.thefishelevator.com/

Before going on and buying one, you probably want to see how it works.  There is a series of “catches” on the main dot com web site listed above, but the second video shows this guy catching a very big fish, which is nice because the fish elevator guys needed this as a testimony to its usefulness.

It’s a pretty cool device and it’s funny nobody thought of it sooner.

http://www.thefishelevator.com/video.html

Enjoy!

I’ll go find some more interesting stuff!

Bears Butt

January 20, 2014

Looking at this picture makes you realize there must be some very tall people who like to ice fish!  So, once you have the hole drilled through the ice, there is no way for you to get your line down into the depths of the water unless you clear out all the slushy stuff and ice chunks left from the drilling process.

Most of us have a scoop like this one:

They work really well, are very inexpensive and some even have handles that will float should you drop it in the hole.  Mine don’t…but I’ve never dropped one yet.

Well, I ran across a new devise that makes the job of scooping out the ice quicker.  Watch this video:

Pretty slick I’d say!

So, here you are ice fishing, is it cold outside?  Usually and of course the water in your open ice fishing hole will begin to freeze over.  You are constantly using your ice scoop to keep it open.  Again, in my searches on the web, I run across a lot of great ideas and here are a couple more.

These would be very useful if you are fishing when it is EXTREMELY cold outside, or where you might be using  two or more poles, maybe even one of them with a Jaw Jacker setup.  The Jaw Jackers don’t allow you to clear the ice in the hole without undoing the setup and moving it away from the hole.  This idea would free you up from any ice buildup whatsoever.

Now you know how to make one, what do you do with it?

I took this picture off the internet.  So, it shows keeping the ice clear from two holes and I suppose if you were using one hole for your fish finder and the other to fish from this would work perfectly.  It certainly makes sense to me and reminds me of a time fishing a tourney, where we had to try and keep our fish alive until an official could come and measure them.  We drilled a hole in the ice about a foot deep, near one of our ice fishing holes and channeled the water into that hole.  We called it the “Hog Trough”!  Another story.

Back on track.  So the distance from the coffee can to the hole would probably have to be fairly close, like maybe a couple of inches…just guessing.

As usual, one thing almost always leads to another and so I did find something called a “spitter”.  This is a take off of the coffee can idea, only more elaborate.  I just might have to make one of these  “just because”…mostly to see if it actually works.

With this being a patent pending idea, I would have to modify it quite a bit and my initial thought is to use the coffee can idea and incorporate the coiled tubing.  It appears to me that the lower end of the tubing would protrude out the bottom of the coffee can and would suck cold water up and the heat from withing the coffee can would cause the cold water to get hot and spit out the upper end of the coil…thus the name “spitter”….The spitter end would be aimed at the hole you wanted to keep open and the hot water would surely keep the ice from forming.  Great idea!

Some of you are probably thinking….What happened to grabbing your ice auger and a bucket with your pole and bait in it and going fishing?  Good thought, but gizmos and stuff are what this world is all about…why keep it simple?

Bears Butt

January 19, 2014

It’s Saturday and time to take some kids ice fishing.  I seriously thought it would be a day like New Years Eve day, but not so.  Too many other things going on in the kids world.  So, as of last night it was Weasel and I with three kids.  This morning I awoke to a message saying one of the three kids has backed out, and that might cause one of the other two to back out as well.  We will see.

Whatever, and even if it means just Weasel and I are going fishing, so be it!

The game plan calls for Hyrum again, since Pineview didn’t pan out like we thought it would.  Hyrum is full of small rainbows and tons of small perch.  Any perch over 10 inches that decides they want to bite will be pan fish!

I have a pocket full of quarters and am ready to go!  Bring it on!  And for any of you out there willing to meet us up at the lake, I will drill holes for free!  That’s right, free, the only stipulation is the holes have to be within 30 yards of where we are set up!  Come on!

Bears Butt

January 18, 2014

PM REPORT!!!!

Wow!  What a great day to be out and about outside!  A wonderful day of fishing and after I tell you just the time line that we were out you should be able to understand just how great a day it was.

Can you imagine taking two young kids out fishing and staying from 9:30 until 4:30….ON THE ICE??????  No way!  Kids are good for one or two MAYBE three stretching it, but not SIX HOURS!

So, what keeps kids on the ice for that long?  Fish!  That is the bottom line…fish!

So, it was about 3 that the first talk started coming from the youngest, Cody…when are we going home?  Then about 3:30, Kenzie pipes in with, It’s boring, when are we going home?  The fish are not biting, let’s go?  When are we going?

My response was…in about two hours…you should have heard the whining then!  It even made Cole chuckle. By the way, Cole came up to get some free holes!  And he hadn’t even been on Bears Butt Dot Com!

Well, as for the fishing!  It was fast if you had the right lure in the water….everyone caught at least one fish…well….maybe not Cole….Everyone caught at least ONE quarter fish (we put a qualifier on size today)….well…maybe not Cole….Some of us caught two Quarter fish….Of course not Cole, but he was a good sport about it and gave up his quarters freely (Thanks Cole, you can join us anytime!)!!!!!

So, let’s see some of the fish we caught today!  Perch and trout…that is what we caught and lots and lots of bites!

Not too big Kenzie!

Not too big Cody!

Now there you go girl!  Nice trout!  I’ll pay a quarter for you catching that one!

OH YA!  That perch is worth a quarter Cody!  Good fish!

Oh my!  Grandpa, Bears Butt, how did that fish get the hook into its mouth?

And of course the day would not be complete without showing what Weasel’s $40 Jaw Jacker caught…his first fish on it!

Now that shows you just how “sensitive” you can set those things!

My home made “Butt Jacker” did not even trip, however I did catch a fish while it was set up and ready to strike, the fish just wasn’t big enough to make it go off…design error on my part.

We had a wonderful day on the ice and after the whining stopped about 3:33..the action picked up and suddenly it was 4:30 and time to go!

What a great day with over 75 fish iced and all of them turned back except those that will be used for catfish bait later in the year!

Thanks guys for the great time!

Bears Butt

PM report January 18, 2014

I have to admit something right now.  This morning when I woke up my mind was on what goal I was going to set for myself, that is kind of a given with me.  Well, I could not get my mind off of fishing, I even brought the rules of play for the Sulpher Creek ice fishing event into the living room when I brought in our coffee’s.

One thing lead to another and Winemaker asked me if I had ever texted Shipley about the Sulpher Creek event.  I hadn’t.  And so I grabbed up my phone and sent him a text.  Almost immediately Shipley is on the phone talking about Sulpher Creek and how he was planning on going alone if nobody else called.  He was glad to hear Weasel and I were going.  We talked about Ron Brown as well, and he said he would call Ron and see if he was planning on going and if so, we would take two vehicles, if not, then the three of us would ride in one rig.

Then he told me about his latest fishing trips to Mantua and Pineview and how well he was doing on a new lure he had picked up…a little minnow shaped lure with the hook attached to a beaded chain.  Odd.  And he went on that the only places you can find them is a single store in Salt Lake and our very own Anglers Den in Roy….My mind said I would take a trip to Roy today.

Shortly after Winemaker went off to work, I finished up my chores and called Weasel.  I told him about the “new lure” and asked if he wanted to go with me to Anglers Den (go to their website by clicking on the link on the right side of this story under “blogroll”, they are currently the second one down from the top)….Well, he would tell his clients about his emergency meeting and then he would go.

We found ourselves talking with the owner, Wade Jacklin (who by the way was our guide on the cow elk hunt the day I got mine) about hunting and fishing and he was telling us about his recent trip to Pineview and how he slayed the fish left and right using the little “new lures” we had in our hands.  He even showed us a picture of a PILE of perch he caught in just under an hour and a half last weekend!  Did I need more?  What I’m asking is, did I need more influence than that to make my mind up to go fishing today?  NO!

And of course on our drive home, Weasel had to inform his clients that the emergency meeting was going to take the rest of the day!  He wanted to go try out the new lures and of course check out Pineview to see if it would be a good choice of a fishing spot for this Saturday, with the kids!

We were on the lake by 12:30!  Started in 10 feet deep water and eventually moved out to about 20 feet.  We either caught fish or had bites at every depth we tried, drilling at least 8 holes during our move out.  Weasel had the most bites as almost every time he dropped his line in he would get a hit.  My line just sat there.  I did catch two fish and missed a few others, but the most bites were on his line.  He even employed his Jaw Jacker and danged if it didn’t go off a bunch of times, but no fish hook ups.  Once, I saw the pole bounce after it triggered, but the fish spit it out pretty quickly.

As for quarters….well, even after have over a thousand bites, Weasel only caught two fish…we traded my quarter back and forth until I finally I had it back in the end.  He is going to have to train that Jaw Jacker to catch the fish or he will never get it paid for.  He still needs 140 fish, before I catch one.

OK, so now you know what’s going on.  We are going fishing this Saturday, up to Hyrum with at least Weasels kids and hopefully Windy will go with his kids as well.  I haven’t talked to him about this yet.

Then on February 1st, we will be in Evanston Wyoming at Sulpher Creek for their big fish derby.

There just has to be at least one more fishing trip between this Saturday and February 1st don’t you think?  My goodness that’s two full weeks of time!

By the way, those new little lures caught all 4 of the fish today.  I think we would have been totally skunked without them!  Some day I will tell you what they are called and what they look like, until then…Quarters Up!  Of course if you happen to find me on the lake sometime I’ll show you what they look like.  I never would have purchased one had I not had two people tell me they worked.

Bears Butt

January 15, 2014

This time of year is all about ice fishing.  The transition time between hunting and trapping!  A good time of year.

And most of you know that Weasel has gone out and spent a ton of money on an automatic hook setter in order to capitalize on my pocketbook….At a rate of $.25/fish, in order for him to recoup his investment it will take him 140 fish to pay himself back for that contraption.

When he said he had it, I told him, via Facebook, that it would not count in the quarters bet….he said it would count.  I’m a fair and honest guy and so I will let him use it, he needs all the help he can get.  I’m really surprised that he doesn’t use his “two pole” permit card on me to boot.  But we have pretty much established that when someone is using two poles that they have to designate which one is the quarter bet pole.

So, again in fairness to Weasel and any other fisherman who cares to bet quarters with me,  I will honor his costly investment and hope that he can recover his investment before I get put six feet under.  140 fish will do it, but keep in mind, every time I catch a fish it makes his goal one fish farther away.

So, I’ve just been talking about me and him fishing, he has other buddies that I’m certain he can out fish regularly.  I’ll bet he spends more time fishing with them than he does with me, at least until he recovers his investment.

BUT, not to be outdone, and liking to think I can do as well or better than him, I went in search of “Do it Yourself” automatic hook setters and sure enough…I found a good one!

http://www.livingflylegacy.com/2013/12/diy-ice-fishing-automatic-hook-setter.html#comment-form

Copy and paste that one!

Yesterday, I started looking around the garage and the yard sheds and found all but two of the items needed to put one of these bad boys together and when I got back from town, having spent $4.48 for the two parts I didn’t have, I built one of my own!

This baby is ready for action and to fine tune the trigger does not take very long.  I can almost count the number of hooked fish I’ll be catching on my next trip out!  I can hardly wait!  FISH ON!!!!  And dancing to the tune “I’m in the money”!!!!!

The guy’s idea for this DIY rig, has you tying on a looped piece of line at the end eye of your rod and placing that loop over the middle nail and while that does work very well, I found that I can put my end eye on the trigger itself and still get the job done without having a loop that just might get tangled while fighting a fish.  I have yet to see if the looped line will be a problem or not.

So, since I have four ice fishing poles, I tried them all and one of them will not work with this setup…it’s too short of a pole.  Unless of course I wanted to drill another hole or two closer to the end of the setup.  I just might drill those holes…

So, Two of the remaining three poles can be set up using this idea, while the third one has to have a loop of line on it.

Of course any time you build something like this there will be some adjustments that need to be made and some fine tuning here and there.  I’m already thinking about taking the trigger assembly apart and making the holes a bit larger so the trigger is more “hairy”.

This is fun!

Bring LOTS of extra quarters fellas!

Bears Butt

January 14, 2014

(one, fourteen, fourteen)

Today is Grandson Cody’s 8th birthday and he has invited Grandpa to go ice fishing with his dad and a few of his buddies!  It looks like he has the day pretty well planned out as we are leaving town at 10:30 and going to Hyrum to enjoy the fishing.  His mom is making each of us a tuna fish sandwich and Grandpa is bringing hot chocolate.  How much planning is needed?

I doubt it will be as enjoyable as it was New Years Eve day because of a new storm that is coming this way.  It is currently 45 degrees outside and it’s been thawing all night…we can expect some slush on the ice.  Then as the front comes in, the winds are expected to kick up to even 50 mph…I doubt we will see that strong of winds, but for sure we will see some.  I think I’ll leave the ice tent home, it won’t be that cold and the wind would want to take it away.

Sitting with Winemaker enjoying our morning cup(s) of coffee, it suddenly dawned on me that my license is expired!  I’ll make the trip to Smith and Edwards right at 9 to get my new one!  That would have made for an interesting lesson for a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds to see Grandpa get a ticket for fishing without a license!  Not a good lesson at all!

Let me explain officer……

So, how many of these kids will be prepared for slushy ice, cold feet and hands and just how long will be actually be on the ice fishing today?

Cody said when he called last week that a couple of the kids he has invited have never been fishing.  This will be a real treat for me today.  I can hardly wait, new kids to fishing…I love it!

More to come on here after we return!

Bears Butt

January 11, 2014

PM Edit:

The weather was quite nice in spite of the forecast!  There was a time today when wearing anything other than a t-shirt was too much!  But then the front came through and changed all of that really quick!  Before that happened the boys had made sure their clothing was good and wet…hats, gloves, snow pants, socks…it was all wet!  When the wind started to blow, it didn’t take but one announcement that we were going home and they were on the run for the truck!

It was a very fun day!

Everyone caught at least one fish even if it was with their hands (3 fish were caught that way).  The perch were small and the trout were all perfect for the pan, but all the fish went back into the holes!

For an eight year olds birthday fishing day, I’d have to say it was perfect!

Thanks for the invite Cody!  Happy Birthday!

Bears Butt

PM, Jan. 11, 2014

The last day of the year 2013!  And Weasel, Windy and I are taking all the grandkids out on the ice for a day (or whatever) of ice fishing!

It looks like we will be heading to Hyrum Dam, mostly because of the closeness of the bathrooms for the girls.

Whether we catch fish or not, it’s just getting them out and into another environment than they are used to.  The weather is supposed to be relatively warm today with little or no breeze.  You could not ask for a better day to be on the ice.

If the fish will cooperate just a little bit and give each one of them a bite or two the day will be perfect!

Later on this evening, Mom (Grandma) and I are having the entire group of Grandkids to our place for a sleepover!  This might be the last one, as the two oldest are now 12 and entering into that age where it just isn’t cool to be seen with your parents or any adult for that matter!

More on the day’s activity will be posted here.

Bears Butt

A.M. Dec. 31, 2013

EDIT!

I promised an update to this, but didn’t get around to it until right now!

I have to say, the fish Gods were very kind to us on this day!  Every drop of the line produced a hit and that was just what the doctor ordered to keep a bunch of 5 to 12 year olds on the ice!  Little Chase (5) stuck with it for over 4 hours before he started to complain about being cold.  That was 3 hours more than I had expected!  And even though we put most of the fish back the kids still insisted on keeping quite a few.  After all, how can you throw the very first fish you have ever caught back into the hole?

P.M. Report, 2 days late!