Bulldog Lake Ice Fishing Contest 2/12/05

What a beautiful day. Temps were in the mid 40's and I had a to wear shades it was so sunny.

I started the day by heading over to Bulldog lake for the annual Holy Family Church Fishing Contest and Raffle. As it turns out Don Weinmeister and I drove separately for this one, but as I was pulling down the drive way Don passed right in front of me. The contest would run from 12:30-2:00.

We headed out to the lake together, and discovered that NO ELECTRONICS OR SONAR was a rule. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. To me Ice Fishing without electronics is like having dinner without having something to drink. Sure you CAN do it, but why! I find it hard to accept that the electronics give me an unfair advantage when I've used it in two previous Ice Fishing contests this year and won nothing; last week I got skunked. Electronics won't catch you the winning fish, but they will help you catch fish or more fish than you would have otherwise. Basically, the rule excluded one of the main reason's why I enjoy ice fishing. LAME.

Anyway I headed out to what I thought would be the deepest water and when they honked the horn I started fishing. I figured I was in about 23 feet of water which was less than I wanted to be in. In Bulldog the main hole goes down 36 feet or so. I started with Maggots on a Fat Boy but got nothing. Some fish were getting caught just to the South of me. I also watched a girl fishing right by the weigh in car catching sunfish after sunfish. It appeared that lots of small sunnies and perch were being brought up. Also some people to just to the South of me brought up a couple of almost half pound Crappies. I switched to a spoon and jigging a minnow figuring a Pike would be the winning ticket. In the last half hour I switched to a minnow hoping to get a Crappie as that no pike had been brought in and there was a 3 way tie with Crappies.

With about 15 minutes left I took this pic figuring I wouldn't catch anything.

With about 10 minutes left, I missed what appeared to be a Perch bite. With about 4 minutes left I got another bite and it looked very Crappie like so I took my time before setting the hook. It turned out to be a small Bluegill, but hey I wasn't skunked. I took a picture but apparently it didn't transfer into the memory card. I didn't win a door prize at the raffle ohh well.

Erskine Tourny (Pine Center Sportsman Club)

On 2/5/05 the Pine Center Sportsman hosted an Ice fishing Contest on Erskine Lake that I fished with Don Weinmeister (Picture) . The Prizes were $300 for the biggest fish, $100 for the 10th biggest fish, and $100 for the first fish. I didn't qualify for any of those cause I got skunked. The Contest had probably 200 to 300 people and only 5 fish were caught total. I don't know what they did about that 10th biggest fish. However, I did win two candy bars as door prizes, Woohoo! A Milky Way and a Twix.

Erskine is a little dishpan lake about 5 miles North of Platte. I've never fished the lake except for a few casts in the spring off the public access. The fishing area was about 150 yards out from the access and seemed to be barren sand bottom. Probably not the best choice of spots on the lake to have a contest. Don says it's a pretty good bass lake, I might have to check it out next summer.

Aitken Jaycess Ice Tourny

Try your Luck on the Dead Sea?

Not too Crowded.


Well it was a beautiful morning when I and Don Weinmeister set about after fame and fortune on the Mille Lacs Lake glacier. Ok it was a little hazy, but the temps were good and there was very little wind. The Contest was sponsored by the Aitkin Jaycees (duh!) and was held out of Barnacle's Resort on the NE corner of the "Big Pond."

We arrived a little over an hour and a half early and did some scouting with the Vex. We immdiately found water 26ft deep and marked fish. We basically decided that was good enough and set up shop in the NE corner of the designated fishing area. Sure enough as soon as the contest started I had fish looking at my offerings.

Unfortunatly I didn't catch anything until about 45 minutes in when I seriously downsized to maggies and then all was catching were 2-3" perch. Finally I got a couple of perch I thought might have a shot at the prizes. I weighed the biggest, but by then he wasn't big enough to make the Top 25 for prizes. I gave it a good effort in the last hour but just could not get a bigger fish to go. I pretty much had crowds of little perch around the whole time from start to finish.

Since it was so nice out, Don and I decided to fish while the crowds made there way off the ice. There are a few more Ice Contests I hope to hit this winter. Maybe if I was able to weigh all the Perch I caught, I would have had enough to get a prize. Oh well, it's just a Ice Fishing contest and the money goes to the community.

Here's Don