01-05-2006, 03:33 PM
I hooked up with waterat and nugs on Wednesday 1/4/05 and headed to the berry. Waterat and myself had our sleds with us and had intent of hitting Renegade. As waterat worked on his sled (getting it started) I checked out the ice. After hitting the ice and sinking in the slush I quickly learned that I had brought the wrong machine. Upon seeing that someone had left their machine out in the middle of the bay I choose to turn around and get off the ice. Waterat got his machine going and we thought about hitting Mud creek, it was only plowed about half way to the water the rest was all 3’ snow drift. We went back to are original plan and took the road to Renegade. It was a lot easier access down there. I parked my sled at the edge of the ice. Waterat took his screaming machine across the ice. There were some places that had frozen enough that he could stay on top. He dropped off his gear and came back and picked me up. I had him drop me off at a spot that I had fished a few years back and did well. He then had to go back and get my gear. When I got my gear I drill several hole 30 feet apart while he went back and got nugs. By the time he got back I had my pole in the water, it was shortly after that I started catching fish. Nugs got a few hits in his hole and waterat had caught 1 fish buy the time I had caught my 4th fish. I drilled several more hole around me and invited them to fish a little closer for it was obvious that I had the hot spot. Nugs was a quick learner, I would use my flasher to watch his jig drop down I would tell him when to stop and when the fish were going to hit. He was able to hook up with several nice fish. I think he iced 4 and had several self releases. Waterat caught around 10 or so fish and lost several more too. I ended up with around 10 - 12 fish also with about as many self releases. I had one fish break my hook off and another one bend the hook almost straight. We fished for about 4 to 5 hours. All fish were in the slot most were around 20 - 21 inches. We were using minnow, night crawlers, meals, and wax worms on assorted white tube jigs. The hot spot was in 45 feet of water.
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Nugs reeling in his fish.
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waterat with his
[black]I would have taken more pictures but I keep getting hit. My pole was bounce when I was taking these pictures.[/black]
The catching was hot but our feet were not. We all had wet feet I managed to keep mine some what dry by sitting in my sled. The wind picked up around noon so we set up the tents for a few hours to block the wind. The sun came out after the wind and we started to have steam come off our clothes.
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It wasn't a bad trip for saying we had snowmobile problems and 4 inches of slush. I had good company, ice lots of big fish, and got a little snowmobiling in.
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