Weekend on the Bay
Original Post:
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/fishing/?p=262
Spent a quick day and a half up on Saginaw Bay this weekend. Packed up the truck Thursday night, loaded up the trailer with the quad and 3-wheeler and headed out at 4:30 in the morning for the two hour drive to Saginaw. Going with me was good friend, Thom Christnagel. This was his first time ice fishing and I was hoping for a good weekend for breaking him in right. The fish had other plans.
The drive was nice, I never realized that we had gone around the “14″ split on US-23 north of Ann Arbor. When going over the Zilwaukee Bridge I called my buddy Adam Marchbanks to let him know that one quick stop at Frank’s Great Outdoors for bait and we would be on the way. I behaved while there, just staying in the front section where the bait is, although tempted to do a little roaming around. Frank’s was very good to us on the bait, and they even held my scoop that I had dropped when I came back in!!!
The fishing was poor to say the least. Adam’s Nextel walkie talkie was chirping all day with friends and family calling to see if we were on fish at all. There were reports of of one or two here and there, but mostly the same as us…zilch. It was like that all day Friday, and the half of Saturday we fished.
I don’t know what made me feel worse, that Thom’s first time ice fishing was not going well, the frustration on Adam’s face from trying to get us on fish, or the fact that we were marking fish all day long on the Vexilar and only one walleye took our baits over 9 hours on the ice. The weather patterns or the absence of one pattern actually holding for a couple of days, really had the fish screwed up. Nothing worse than seeing them rise off the bottom, follow your jig up for a foot or two, and then do a quick sniff and finally slowly fall back to the bottom again. It seemed like an hour or longer Thom had one teasing him like that on day one. This is him, if you can tell through the clothing, standing over his hole with the FL-20 from Vexilar. I had 12 rods rigged up for us to use, and not one presentation seemed to work on Friday. Saturday night I rigged them all again with different baits trying to settle one productive bait. Spoons, jigs, swimbaits, big or small and nothing could trigger a good bite.
I took this picture Saturday after having breakfast at the Gobbler’s Roost, which was excellent, and came at a good price, too. Not only was the pic breathtaking, but there wasn’t much in the line of fish to photograph so I thought I better get snapping. You might be able to see the two black dots after downsizing the photo for the website. They are just in front of some huge ice piles formed by the wind two weeks earlier. The dots are anglers heading out into the bay in the morning. Don’t think I have ever seen a prettier sunrise.
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