Last Minute Rainbow
 

Saturday morning, my wife (The Queen of the Merrimack) and I met The Dad Fisherman and Rockfish9 at the local bait dealer long before daylight before heading to a new prospect pond that Joe and I had scouted from the roads and maps a couple of weeks ago. The target was rainbow trout. ...BIG rainbow trout.

As we walked across the ice, hopes were high and the terrain looked perfect. ...lots of sand and plenty of boulder fields. I absolutely loved what I saw.

We set our gear in water ranging from 1 to 20 feet of water and waited. ...And waited. All morning and only one "drive-by" and four salmon eggs stolen out of a hole I decided not to use:smash:

Finally, early in the afternoon, Kevin got a flag and drew first blood with a nice pot bellied yellow perch which was released unharmed after a few pictures. Twenty minutes later it was Joe's turn. Another big yellow. Now, we were all hoping for a late day flurry to make up for the extremely slow day we were having so far. But unfortunately it was not to be.

Good friends, great food, and lots of laughs more than made up for a tough day of fishing.

And Kevin, not long after you left, as the shadows grew long and we were picking up our traps, I checked that chum one last time, as I did dozens of times throughout the day. They were gone!!! As I tossed more eggs into the hole, a trout around the 3 pound mark would rocket by and grab them before they could settle on the bottom in only 1.5 f.o.w.

I did hook it, I did fight it for quite a while, and my wife did take a picture of it. But I was not able to bring the kamikaze to hand.

I WILL BE BACK to the shallow pond with so much potential.
I saw all I needed to.

Some fat perch. All were released.

...and one rocket propelled rainbow in 1.5 feet of water as it took my offering.

The picture is not cropped or altered in any way. ...It was that close!

great post :btu:

Tell me brian.. did you sleep or did you have nightmares???

I put my Ice fishing gear away for the season yesterday and fogged the auger and turned to more serious buisness.. preparing for the REAL fish...High pressure was not our friend saturday.. but it was a good way to end a pretty darn good ice fishing season considering the hand we were delt...

I had that bad feeling it just wasn't meant to be before I even dropped hook and line below the ice. I asked the wife if she wanted to try and catch it... she looked at me and said NO WAY! And she's not a novice fisherwoman.
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I was mad at first, but it quickly became a reason to go back and try again. So yup, I stayed awake last night poltting my revenge!!!

I'll go back and try and give'em hell for ya.....:hee:

Beautiful day on the ice Saturday, to bad mother nature isn't cooperating with ice this season......would be good to get a few more trips out before spring

Thanks for the pics this winter. Never even started my ice auger this winter. I am too lazy to go far for hard water.

NICE!!!!!