I recently took a few guys out and tried to catch a few of the big crappies many lakes of northern Minnesota are known for. We worked with Rick Grabko from the Boy Lake area. Rick lives on the lake and runs a guiding operation on the lake. He rents a few fish houses so we fished out of one of those and stayed in Longville.



The house was sitting in one of the deep holes of the upper basin. We were in roughly 38 feet of water at the base of a ledge running up to 23 feet. Too deep for the Aqua Vu so I borrowed a Vexilar from a fishing buddy. We marked plenty of fish but just couldn't get them to bite. We only managed one crappie the first day and 4 more on day two. Earl had never been ice fishing before so it was good that he caught the majority of the five fish.


                                        Earl shows off the catch of the day.


                                                     Good size fish even if the numbers were down.

Everyone had an extra day before having to hop on planes etc. so we headed back to the cities and hooked up the wheel house to the truck. Off to tonka to bend a rod a few more times.
We parked the house on a weed edge that drops off into a deep hole. I have had luck here in the past and it didn't take long till the action got hot. The Aqua Vu showed fish everywhere. Ray took up a comfy spot on the couch while Earl landed fish after fish from a corner chair. Bill (my dad) and myself took turns catching fish out of another hole and laughing at the almost constant yelling of "Fish On!"


                                                Ray liked his spot on the couch.

They might not have been the biggest fish but we caught plenty (probably around 50) and brought home enough good ones to have a real nice fish fry with the girls back home. We also got one decent northern on a tip up on top of the weed flat.

 
                                        Earl lands a big one   


                                           Celebrating the catch

All in all it was a great three days on the ice. It was great to spend time with friends and to introduce the sport of ice fishing to a newcomer.
If you are interested in the trip we took and want more info about the places we went or the gear we used, feel free to drop me a line.

Sport