Soldierberry 1/10

[fisherman]

6 of us fished soldiercreek bay from 9 to 4 pm. Weather was very nice once the fog burned off. Early in the day they bit best half way down in 20-40 feet of water, later in the day on the bottom or near the bottom.

The only bait that didn't work very well were minnows. Worms, night crawlers, meal worms , wax worms all worked about the same, scent or no scent. Same with lures, jigs, ice flies, spoons, large or small, no one lure worked any better than the others. The fish were semi inactive, they wanted it holding still most of the time. They would look at it for along time before biting or swim away when you dropped down or reeled up to them.

The best part of the trip was that the 3 kids caught most of the fish, 54 for the kids, 20 for the adults. Twenty fish were close to 22 inches, 10 were 12 inch rainbows, the rest were 14-19 inches with 3 nice rainbows. One little 8 year old girl is hooked now, she was alot of fun to watch. My 15 year old nephew and his friend were concentrating pretty hard too. I sure enjoyed seeing the younger kids get hooked on some good clean fun. Take a kid fishing or hunting!
[signature]

[Kent]

Great report Aron. Always great to take the kids out. Did you spend most of your time fishing in 40 feet of water?
[signature]

[MrLipripper]

Holy smoke, Aron, great job! How/where was access? What type of fish finder did you use? Ice thickness? Did you move around a lot or stay in one spot? Did you leave any fish for me? Will Bush be re-elected this year? Will I ever stop? THANKS!!!
[signature]

[fisherman]

We hiked in on the soldier creek dam road on a packed trail all the way to the ice, where the dirt road goes into the lake, the ice was 4-5 inches thick with 3 inches of snow, only one slush spot when we left with about 3-4 inches of slush. We fished the east shore line in the same area all day, drilled about 20 holes within a 30-40 yard area. The fish were pretty evenly spread out and caught in all the holes, larger rainbows in shallower and close to shore. Morning was best but they bit all day with alittle slow time around noon. I still use my 10 year old eagle ultra portable with ice fishing adaptor for ice fishing.
I usally like to fish the shallower water and have caught all the biggest ones in 20 feet or less.

Its alot of fun seeing these kids get better at fishing. They will remember these trips for a long time.[]
[signature]

[kj]

I like to fish the same general area as you described only we head a little further south from the road as it goes into the lake. (about another 1/4 mile or a little more) We always do real well. We have found that the fish in that area like the 20 - 30 ft deep water. I haven't been there this year yet, but hope to go this weekend. I fished the marina saturday night from 10:30 to 2:00 am and we did well. Had the lake to ourselves. Thank goodness we had a tent and heater or I think we'd have frozen.
[signature]