Mississippi River Pool 9 Ice Fishing 1/22/04

Brrrrrrr, Baby it’s Coooollld out side !!

Todays guide trip was just for the crazy’s. With the wind chill around -20 below zero and the temp at a firm -4 when I left Prairie I met up with Bob Copeland and the first thing he said to me was, We Must Be Crazy !!!!

Well like they always say when ice fishing with me " It’s always an adventure"…

The bite was way slow due to the cold front that was over the top of us. The gills and crappies even new it was cold..Some of the fish hit with a vengence but others would just barley suck it in…Rockers tipped with waxies took most of the fish for me today and if it were just a bit warmer I would have snuck over to the other shelters and took some pix of the guys and found out what they were using…As it was we did get a couple of pix up at the truck….here is Bob Copeland and his partner Mark with a couple of freeze dried fish…

Were were set up and on the ice by 7:30 am and the morning bite was the best all day…boy when they shut off they shut right down…It was too cold for this cat to be hole jumping today so I would drill a couple of holes and fish them for an hour or so , then move on to another spot and drill a couple more holes, and on and on and on…..I threw several gills back today that were in the 7-7 1/2 inch range and only kept the gills that were at the 8 inch mark or better….Several crappie were hungry in the morning and some what through out the day with the biggest in my shack being 11 1/2 inches….We ended up with a nice mess of fish for the day but there were some long lulls in between bites towards the middle of the day..Here is my last picture, and it is of Bob and Mark with the days catch…

I had a great time out there with you guys even though we didn’t have much conversation…I hope to see you guys again soon !!

Remember to click on the images to see them in there full size