Skunked

I've never been skunked so bad as I was last weekend when we went up to Cascade to do some ice fishing.    It was the slowest day I can ever remember having up there.

The only good news to come out of the whole situation was that it wasn't just us.  Nobody was having any luck.  It made me realize how lucky we were to have ice on Lake Lowell and CJ Strike this year where the perch fishing was phenomenal.  I wonder how many years will go by until ice presents itself again like it has this year.  The ice in these two locations is pretty much done now for the year down here in the valley.  So it's back to travelling up north or east into the mountains to find any hard water.

I took my eight year old daughter with me ice fishing for the first time last year so she was chomping at the bit this year to go.  It's too bad it had to be on such a crappy day of fishing.  Luckily the weather was good though and she was able to actually spend some time playing on the ice in between flags going up.

I spent some time jigging but still no action.  I'm surprised some tumbleweeds didn't ironically start blowing across the lake just to add to the ill effect.

Taylor was really the only one to have any luck when she was able to pull in a nice jumbo.  It was pretty exciting considering it was one of not very many fish we actually caught.  Obviously we were easily amused.

Even though it was a slow day we had a good time hanging out and the girls kept busy amusing themselves on the ice.  Natalie kept her spirits up, which isn't too hard for her to do since she is so easy going.  She was happy to just get out on the ice...and get herself a free ride back to the rig.

Hitting the ice

I was finally able to get out a few weekends ago and do some ice fishing.  We've been lucky...or maybe unlucky if you talk to non-ice fishing people.  It was in the extreme cold around here thanks to the inversion for what seemed like forever.  It may not have been forever, but it was long enough to put a solid 12-inches of ice on Lake Lowell down here in the treasure valley.  In fact even this week things are starting to really warm up, and I fear it will be the end of the accessibility of local ice.

We had a great time on the lake.  We went out on Saturday and then Sunday as well.  My daughter really had the jigging down and was pulling up perch like there was no tomorrow.  In those few days we ended up with enough perch to feed our family of seven for two meals...and that's saying a lot considering everyone loves it, it's one of our favorite foods.

I was actually pretty surprised at the size of the perch in this lake.  Cascade has really been getting the notoriety lately on jumbo perch, soI was beside myself when I pulled this nice 12-inch perch out of this lake.

However, I was even more astonished when I hooked into a nice kitty.  It took a little bit to get it up to the hole, but when it got there it was twitching it's whiskers at me.

This was a nice sized cat, 5-lbs, and 23-inches.  I had to reach down the hole with my hand to get it up as I had used my 6-inch hand auger it ended up being a little tricky to get it positioned right so I could grab it.  Everything worked out though and I was happy to bring in my first catfish through the ice.

Like with most of our adventures the level of success wasn't just measured in the game we got, but also in the memories and experiences we shared together.  It was a great few days, and as the last day came to a close I was sad that it had to end.  As each journey comes to an end it opens the door to a new one...I'm looking forward to it!