Finally!!! After 12 attempts this winter and 3 lakes later, I can finally report that I finally caught my first kokanee thru the ice!!!
It was a roller coaster ride of a day for my 2 boys. We arrived at Tyee Lake around lunch time. We hiked into our spot and the boys lost interest in fishing by the time we got to our spot, so they played monster trucks.
I punched through a couple holes from yesterday and away we went. I set up my borrowed fish finder and it appeared to be marking fish at 50ft. After realizing I forgot my meal worms in our fish cooler in the truck (never putting them there again), I put on a pink synthetic maggot and dropped it down to 50ft. After about a half hour, we had a bite and nothing! Shortly after that another fish came along and we had it on ice in a huge hoot and holler from the boys (I’m sure the 2 guys who caught 16 fish when we left were excited too).
My boys put their rods in the water for about 10min and then gave up again. They were not into fishing today and we just got there!!! Any one experience what comes next?
It was a tough 2hrs or so of boys being boys fighting and making up, until we reached the tipping point and had to pull anchor.
We seemed to be marking fish, but there were only 5 bites after the first fish and nothing from our location seemed to be interested anymore.
Best news is, I can now put the ice fishing gear away and will not be having nightmares of not landing one of the many fish that bit my hook.
Persistence pays off!!! And now to spend the rest of the summer slowly talking to people and reading up and what we can do different next ice fishing season.
Can’t wait for ice off!!!