Fishing Adventure With Muddy Bottoms

Well here is a blog about our little adventure ice fishing. I fish all the time in the spring, summer, and fall. I have never ice fished in all my years (never really had anyone to go with). Well at the Chili bonfire meet and greet. Muddy Bottoms invited me to come up to his house in Ripon and go ice fishing with him. The original plan was to go out on a lake that he has a ice shake that he uses but it was already taken off the ice and put away. So we ended up going to a pond close to his house where he saw guys the day before running to flags and pulling fish up. So that’s where we were going. I didn’t care I go by the saying a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day of work. :) So I got directions since my GPS wont work if I have my iPod fm transmitter in (I think the signals get messed up or something). I woke up the next morning at around 3:45 ish so I can take a shower and get everything loaded eat breakfast and start my drive. According to map quest it was going to take me 1hr and 40 mins to make it there. I have learned from all my years of using that system the timing they post are usually not correct. I made it there in about 1 hr and 25 mins. (I was doing the speed limit). When I got there MB already had 3 tip ups in the water and had already caught 2 fish he said one was a nice one nothing to big and the other was a small snake one about 12 inches long. So after we sat and walked the ice and talked and he instructed me on what to do when a flag goes up we started up the auger and drilled my 3 holes. In the state of Wisconsin for every fisherman you are allowed 3 lines max. So we followed the rules (don’t want to break those rules very expensive and sometimes you can’t get a license for 3 years). So we got my 3 tip loaded and in the water. MB said just wait 10 mins and we will have a flag and sure enough in about 10 mins later 2 flags went up 1 was gone and the other one I didn’t pull the line right. No worry we had all day. After fishing from 6:30 to about 9:00 we noticed the bait was gone we used up the last of what MB had so we had to make a bait run so we decided after a flag went up and bait was gone we pulled the line and let it sit once we got 3 of them up MB ran to the bait store and we reloaded the 3 lines and dropped them in. things slowed down for a little bit around lunch time MB busted out the Coleman stove and made some venison steaks all I have to say is YYYUUUUMMMMMYYYYY!!!!! Those things were awesome. After lunch we kept having flags go here and there and we were running to get them. We didn’t catch anything really huge but for me it was the experience and the company. It was getting late so we decided to start pulling everything up. MB went to one tip up and I went to another and when I grabbed it I couldn’t pull the line it was frozen in the ice. So I used the bottom of the tip up to break up the ice a little. I then started to pull the line I don’t know if it was me pulling or if it was there and it couldn’t set the flag, but there was a fish on the other end of this line. So I yelled to MB and he came over and it turned out to be one of the bigger fish of the day. We did start to laugh at that one. After we got everything loaded up I noticed my face was little sore. I didn’t think anything about it we said our good bye’s and we both headed home. By time I got home my face was rockin it hurt like heck and my lips were hurting really bad. Then my wife came home and man did I get it all I could say was yes I forgot to put suntan lotion on but hey it was worth it :). Well sorry for the rambling but here are a few pics of the trip

My fisrt fish through the ice. (can you see that little fish in my big paws)

MB pulling a fish through the ice

                                                                                                                  MB pulling the hook out of a fish

Yummy shore lunch venison filets.

one of the bigger fish during the day my biggest fish through the ice.