Ice Out by Easter- Update #9

I missed blogging the Minnesota Climatology update from yesterday:

4-9 Carrie Lake (Kandiyohi County) This is the 1st lake in their "Central" region.
4-10 Rush (Chisago County)

I am a little shocked that Rush went out with my area lakes not even having the ice pulling away from the shore yet.

Waconia and Tonka were added to the "partial cover" designation which means they should be ice free by Easter.

Fish ON!

I headed to the GOMH tonight just before sunset. I was greeted by loons calling as I got out of the car. I'd say there are 3-4 acres of open water on the Platte side and the Sullivan side has a lot of open water but the PRO is not all ice free, maybe 70-80%. I wanted to test out some of my new equipment tonight, I didn't really think I would catch anything. I set up on the SW side and found this spot at the end of the bridge concrete to be quite fishable. On my very first cast I had something swirl on lure I was throwing to test out. A couple of casts later and I had my first jumpin bullhead of the season. It was about 13.5 inches and bit in fairly shallow water away from current and around weeds. I made a few more casts with that lure and then started switching baits pretty frequently because it was going to be getting dark pretty quick. As I was casting one of the trial lures over deeper water in the current I got another hit. I pulled in a 14.5-15 inch jumpin bullhead. I was very quickly of the opinion that I might catch more fish, but that was it. By the time I got to the Cubby rod it was almost to dark to gauge the bobber. At this point it is a huge crap shoot on figuring out where a few silver bullheads might set up. With the old bridge there was the "bullhead sweet spot" which was such a high percentage spot if any silver bullheads moved in towards dark, without that kind of knowledge pinpointing them could prove difficult until a new sweet spot is found. There is no guarentee there will be a new "bullhead sweet spot."

I Won from Fishing Hype

Fishing Hype is the online nom de guerre of Minnesota Bass Professional Brian Brown. He has Fishinghype.com and FishingHype blog. If you email Brian your name and address he will put your name in a hat for a monthly prize drawing. His email is brb21@tds.net .

It's pretty good stuff too, I got: (See Outkast)
1 Outkast Finesse Jig
2 Outkast Swim Jigs
2 Outkast RT Jigs
3 Outkast Money Jigs
300 Yards 17lb Gamma High Performance Copolymer Line
3 OutKast Stick Worms
6 Outkast Chunks
5 Outkast Naughty Bugs
4 ???? Tubes
3 Outkast Spider Grubs
4 Outkast Fat Tail Grubs
4 ???? Brush Hogs

Boyd and Team Bassackwards

Boyd blogs a bad day... He did kick some serious butt at the Neely Henry PAA yesterday.

Team Bassackwards makes some announcements...

I may actually get some fishing in today.

Ice Out by Easter- Update #8

Today I took a quick tour of the area lakes and I was a bit surprised to find out that the ice hasn't even started pulling away from the shore yet. I could easily go ice fishing tomorrow if I wanted. I have to say there is a 0% chance Platte will be ice free on Sunday. However, I do think the ice will go out some time next week.

There is open water at the GOMH (see post below this one for details). I think there is a fair chance that I will be able to catch a fish at the GOMH before the ice goes off Platte.

Minnesota Climatology updated today...
4-7 Bald Eagle (Ramsey County)
4-8 Medicine (Hennepin County)

Forest, Calhoun, Rush, South Center, and White Bear all are listed as "partial cover." The most interesting one on this list to me is Rush because it is the farthest North. I have read reports that some of the bays on Minnetonka are open. I am guessing all the city lakes will be ice free by Easter.

Update: Minnesota Climatology doesn't show an update for today but they did switch a couple of lakes to open.
4-8 Forest (Washington County)
4-8 Calhoun (Hennepin County)
Hopefully they will update tomorrow.

Note: My computer Operating System isn't good enough for Google Earth, otherwise I would make the call myself on certain lakes.

I wet a line today...

I didn't catch anything, which isn't a surprise. The GOMH has about 2 acres of open water on the Platte side and I would say more than 10 acres are open in the Platte River Outlet section of Sullivan. The Sullivan PRO seems to be 60-70% ice free.

I just wanted to get this in while today is still today more info in the next Ice Out by Easter- Update.

Favorite Fishing Song: Fisherman's Blues by The Waterboys

I wish I was a fisherman
tumblin' on the seas
Far away from dry land
and its bitter memories
Casting out my sweet line
with abandonment and love
No ceiling bearin' down on me
Save the starry sky above
With light in my head
you in my arms
Woo!

I wish I was the brakeman
on a hurtlin' fevered train
Crashing a-headlong into the heartland
like a cannon in the rain
With the beating of the sweepers
and the burnin' of the coal
Counting the towns flashing by
in a night that's full of soul
With light in my head
you in my arms
Woo!

I know I will be loosened
from bonds that hold me fast
That the chains all hung around me
will fall away at last
And on that fine and fateful day
I will take thee in my hands
I will ride on the train
I will be the fisherman
With light in my head
you in my arms

Light in my head
You in my arms (repeat)

Doggy Visitors

I live in the country and on occasion we have various animals wander on to our property. For instance our stubby tailed cat Smokey was a stray that weaseled his way into the family. We have a skittish salt and peppered colored cat that took up residence in our pole barn this Winter. Last Winter while I took the dog out for it's duties a neighbors lost kitten wandered out of the woods and we have taken another black and white cat in to the shelter.

Today these two mystery dogs showed up. They were friendly and came right up to my dad when he called them. One is a 4 month old Doberman puppy and the other dog is a 2 year old. They both had collars on, but only the brown one had a tag and that was from a shelter in Salt Lake City Utah. When I called the shelter there was no answer. My dad went over to the next door neighbors to the South and sure enough these were dogs they had just recently acquired. So the case of the mystery dogs came to a swift conclusion.

Even though they were very nice dogs I hope that I don't see them again, especially that Doberman once it is full grown.

Ice Out by Easter- Update #7

Today is supposed to be the last of the under 40 degree days that we have been experiencing for the last couple of weeks. There is an outside shot Platte will be ice free on Easter. I probably will not get to check on Easter, however, because I am going to the cities that day. Looking at the forecast, I think the ice will probably be off by the 15th.

Minnesota Climatology updated today.
3-31 Lake of the Isles (Hennepin County)
4-3 Gervias (Ramsey County)
4-3 Fountain (Freeborn County) I don't think this date is accurate, this lake probably went ice free in March.
4-5 Phalen (Ramsey County)

I suspect Minnetonka, Medicine, Waconia, White Bear, South Center, Calhoun, and Forrest will be ice free by Saturday as temps in the cities are supposed to be mid 40's or higher and sun the rest of the week.

BassZone Wide Open Liveblogging- Canceled

I was going to live blog tonight's BazzZone Wide Open with Tommy Biffle but my computer crashed. So the live blog isn't gonna happen. I believe you can catch a replay of the show at BassZone.com.

Ebayt Monkey Attack

My swim jig box just got a little fuller thanks to one of Rich "Hellabass" Lindgren's Ebay auctions. There are Booyah, All-Terrain & Outkast swim jigs and maybe some BPS Monsoors as well. I've never used the Booyah swim jig before, if I don't like them I'll give them to GEM.

Elite Series Wheeler Day 4 Part 2

Day 4 is in the books and it was not a good day for the fantasy squad. Yesterday I said I didn't mind that they let 50 anglers fish today because I thought my fantasy line up had more upside than downside, but it just didn't work out that way. I was worried about Evers dropping. He weighed one of the lightest bags of the day and dropped 18 places which is just going to be a killer with Fantasy Points. Meanwhile Kevin Van Dam didn't improve much and Herren dropped 8 places. The only bright spot was Skeet who climed 21 places but I don't think that even negated all the points lost on the Evers fumble.

Looks like they are not going to try and fish tommorrow so Biffle is the winner.

Here are the Top 12
1 Tommy Biffle 5 16- 2 5 19-14 5 14-13 15 50-13
2 Casey Ashley 5 12-11 5 13-14 5 19-11 15 46- 4
3 Takahiro Omori 5 17- 8 5 16- 1 5 12- 1 15 45-10
4 Brent Chapman 5 13-10 5 13- 0 5 18-10 15 45- 4
5 Michael Iaconelli 5 17- 1 5 12-12 5 15- 6 15 45- 3
6 Bradley Hallman 5 13- 1 5 17-13 5 13-15 15 44-13
7 Mark Tucker 5 11- 9 5 18- 7 5 12-15 15 42-15
8 Mark Menendez 5 16- 1 5 11- 0 5 15- 7 15 42- 8
9 Todd Faircloth 5 14-15 5 14-14 5 12- 6 15 42- 3
10 Stephen Browning 5 11-11 5 16- 4 5 14- 0 15 41-15
11 Gary Klein 5 14- 0 5 14- 3 5 13- 2 15 41- 5

I would guess Browning, Klein, and Menendez are going to move to the head of the class in AOY points. Maybe Klein isn't such a fantasy raw deal after all.

Elite Series Wheeler Day 4 Part 1

The Marshal Journals are something that I found interesting. Basically a couple of Marshals are writing about their experience. One is with Guy Eaker and John Murray.

The Marshal Program: I have a couple of things I want to say about the Marshal Program. Apparently at Wheeler lake they were only able to get 81 Marshals for the 100 boat field. I don't know if they were short at Amistad or Dardanelle but I think it is a sad commentary that they are short and my guess is that if this is the case at one event, it will happen at others.

Apparently Kevin Van Dam did not have a Marshal in the boat on Day 1. There is something seriously wrong with the program when there is not a guarentee that a Marshal will be in the boats of the premier stars of the sport. It's ludicrous that a Marshal missed the chance to fish with Van Dam and had to ride with some rookie instead. I think the big name anglers should not be in the pool for Marshal exemptions. I think the Marshals should have a draft where they get a number between 1 and 100. The guy who draws #1 would get to pick his pro, then #2 picks a pro and so on. For Day 2 the guy who was last gets to pick first. This Marshal draft could take place on one of the days leading up to the tournament.

Elite Series Wheeler Day 3

The full field fished today and I am hoping that Swindle can get on something and move up into the 50' or 60's. Weigh in should be going on right now. On the Bassmaster.com they are calling today Day 2.

For my Fantasy Squad:
Edwin Evers sacked 15-6 so he is moving up.
Skeet (7-3) and KVD (10-2) are both going backward and it could be significant.
It's hard to say how much of an improvement Swindle will make at this point but it isn't going to be a very big jump with only 10-10.
Herren posts 12-7 which will keep him right in the ballpark of his Day 1 12-12 29th place.

Notables:
It looks like Biffle is going to be leading with a tournament best 19-14 bag.

Boyd kicked the buckett with 4-11.

Last years Wheeler Champion Jeremy Starks is going to finish near the bottom with 16-13.

Looks like Ike will get a Top 12 despite catching only 12-12 today.

Day 1 leader Alton Jones is dropping big time with 8-12.

Day 3 is now in the books
For my Fantasy Squad:
Evers 8th
Herren 22nd
Skeet 45th
KVD 49th
Swindle 83rd

Update: Word is that BASS has decided to be inconsistant and will fish the top 50 tomorrow rather than cutting to the Top 12 today. I think it is a strange call by BASS but I am not going to complain as there is a pretty good chance this development will help my fantasy points. KVD and Skeet are two of the best when it comes to making adjustments and so they rarely have two bad days in a row. I think Herren is a shallow water flipper like Biffle, so he could move up. The big danger is Evers in 8th as there were several Day 3 collapses by tournament leaders. Evers may have burned his water thinking the 12 cut would happen today.

Buh Buh Buh Bait Monkey Attacks

When I went into the Cities for my Fishers of Men Club meeting I hit up Cabela's and Gander Mountain.

First stop was Cabelas where they had a 34lb thrust Minnkota Trolling Motor on sale that I picked up so I could use it on my little boat which I plan to fish on Bulldog lake this year. In addition to that I picked up a shell white Lucky Craft Pointer 100.As I wrote before I was going to buy a 100 Pointer to see if it will live up to the hype and they just happened to have several Pointers and other Lucky Craft's on clearance, so I went with one they had on clearance. I like white for a jerkbait color so it worked out good. Also on Clearance I picked up a white saltwater Rapala Skitter Walk 11

I have wanted to try a Skitter Walk for the past couple of years and getting one on clearance was an opportunity I could not pass up.

Last on my Cabela's shopping list was some Cabela's Aqua Glow Hoochie Koochie's.

Cyberfish had a great deal of success on these Hoochie Koochies last year and I thought they would make a good swim jig and chatter jig trailer so I picked up a few packs.

At Gander Mountain the main mission was to see if they had any of those nice panfish rods that Cyberfish bought last year and sure enough the Maple Grove store had a couple Creekside Fishing Micro Series Crappie Pole's in the 8 foot length. The price was right so I picked one up. The label seems to indicate that these rods are a Gander Mountain brand or exclusive.

However, the bait monkey wasn't done with me as they had some Rapala's for 25% off and I couldn't resist.
I picked up a Glass Minnow Husky Jerk 14 and a Baby Bass Husky Jerk 12. I was going to buy a couple of others but it wasn't clear that they were 25% off so I left them at the register.

I don't think I am going to go with any wake baits this year and since I didn't buy a Sebile Magic Swimmer when I was at Cabela's it is unlikely I will get one of those this year. Still, I don't think the Bait Monkey is through with me yet; I still have a $50 Reeds Gift Card that I got for my birthday.

Elite Series Wheeler Day 2- Canceled

It was yet another late night so, I pretty much slept through anything up to this point. Weigh in starts in about half an hour (or not). I learned last night reading message boards that they actually had Bass Trakk working for a time yesterday. Apparently today Bass Trakk is off track which is all I've ever seen.

Hmmm I have just noticed The Ramada Inn and ESPN/BASS has a guess the weight game with better prizes than their Fantasy Bass Fishing game. If you are registered for ESPN/BASS Fantasy than you are registered for this. I don't know how long the game has been going on, but I see their was a winner from Dardanelle. It doesn't tell you which tournament you are guess is applied to other than it being the next upcoming Elite Series event. I would think that means the door is now closed for Wheeler. Hopefully I will remember to put in a guess for Smith Mountain.

Boyd Duckett has a blog and Voice blog from Day 1...

Skeet has a Voice Blog from this morning...
Update: Learned from Skeet that the Day was canceled.

Scott Campbell has a Voice blog from Day 1...

Ice Out By Easter- Update #6

I went down to the cities yesterday for my Fishers of Men Club meeting. I saw open water as far North as Cantlin Lake which is between Zimmerman and Princeton on the West side of 169. The main body of Rice Lake in Maple Grove was open although it looked like the area where the river runs in South of 94 was still mostly frozen over. It looked like Fish Lake in Maple Grove was open, but I didn't get a real good look at it as I turned onto Weaver Lake road to go to Gander Mountain.

Minnesota Climatology did not update it's lake list yesterday. But I did get word from a guy in the club that Gervias in Ramsey County is open which wouldn't be a big surprise because Gervais is actually South of Kohlman which MC had out on 3-31. If they update today I expect several lakes to be added. The Twin Cities did not get the snow we did and the weather there has been 8-10 degrees warmer than up here.

Update: It does not look like there will be an update from Minnesota Climatology today. The weather being mild yesterday, today, and maybe tomorrow should be pushing ice of of several more lakes when the next update hits next week.

Elite Series Wheeler Day 1

I have other stuff going on today so I will miss the weigh-in and BassZone Wide Open for the day.

It looks like they attempted to get Basstrakk running for this one. It doesn't appear to be working for them, I can't get it anyway. No Bass Cast either.

Another Live option for the day without ESPN 360 is Hooked UP! The are scheduled for 11am, 1pm, 3pm Central Time. It's just after 1pm now and I think I might have missed it. There was streaming of an Elite Evan Williams banner and then that went dead. Must be quick updates, if you blink you miss em. I wonder if doing a live stream is expensive? I wouldn't think so with the stuff they had on livestream at the Classic. I don't want to rip ESPN/BASS to bad, but they are over promising and under delivering yet again.

I don't understand why they don't have a live blog going on at every event like they do at the Classic. At least they should have the blog until they get their act together with Basstrakk and BassCast.

If Hooked Up! is only on for a minute or two or you miss it is messed up.

Also as of right now (1:25pm Central) the Liveleaderboard link is broken. I wonder if they will have that fixed???

Ice Out By Easter- Update #5

Well it just isn't looking good for that Easter ice out. The April Fools snowstorm dumped 6-8 inches of heavy wet snow and the Weather.com 10 Day forecast is not calling for a major warm up next week; In fact it looks like the daily high temps are going to be below average for at least another week. Several days the forecast isn't even projected to get out of the 30's; Average highs now are up into the mid 40's.

However, it is a bit warmer in the Southern reaches of Minnesocold and Minnesota Climatology has added some lakes with the ice off (This is as of 3/31)

3-23 Pepin (Wabasha County)
3-25 Swan (Nicollet County)
3-26 Tetonka (Le Sueur County)
3-31 Zumbro (Olmsted County)
3-31 Kohlman (Ramsey County)

For those who do not know, Ramsey county is basically the city of St. Paul and some of it's suburbs. So Kohlman is the first MC tracked lake in the Twin Cities metro with ice off. MC is listing Ramsey County lakes Phalen and Gervais as "partial" cover and Lake of the Isles in Mpls gets a "partial cover" designation as well. High Temps in the cities are supposed to be in the low to mid-40's, so Twin Cities lakes will probably be opening up on a daily basis this week.

BASS Elite Series Wheeler Lake Fantasy Bass Fishing Changes

The Minnesocold BPboys, my ESPN/BASS fantasy bass fishing team, had a good tournament at Dardanelle compared to most other people and so I moved up into 86.2 percentile of Elite Series fantasy players. I think I was in the high 60's before. Interesting is that I have been pretty consistant with my scores: BMC 1136, Amistad 1129, and Dardanelle 1136. From the looks of it, a score in the 1200's is doing really well and scores over 1300 are excellent and a really poor roster puts one in the 700's maybe even the mid to high 600's.

Anyway I have made my biggest changes to date for Wheeler Lake.

My anchors for the season at least until further notice are KVD, Edwin Evers, and Mr. Cap Space Matt Herren. I decided to drop Kevin Short and Hack. Initially I was taking a strong look at 2 out of these 3 Alabama boys: Tim Horton, Gerald Swindle, and Steve Kennedy. However I ran the numbers and I could add Skeet and Cap Space Monkey 16.8 Swindle could come along for the ride.

So my line up is
KVD
Skeet
Evers
Swindle
Herren
with $1.20 to spare

Other picks I think could be good for Wheeler are Mark Menendez, Randy Howell and Mark Davis. Also an angler with a Japanese name might be a good pick but you probably don't wanna go with Yusuke.