adventure for jumbo perch!!

schmalts

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So i told my fishing bud "hey i got a tip from a guy about this little 20 acre lake full of jumbo perch" He said lets go! So we took off this friday and headed up to northern wisconsin to find this lake. I found it on a topo map and put in the info, and when saterday morning came we loaded up the pull sled and started off through the woods. This lake has no roads, or any kind of access to it except foot travel.
About a half hour into the hike we got up on a high ridge and figured the lake was somewhere below so we started down it while holding the sled back from running us over.the whole time i am thinking what a bitch it will be getting out of here.
When we got within 50 yrds of the lake the windfalls were all over and made it a bitch to get into there but we managed. The lake was like i imagined, no one was there of had been there from the evident lack of tracks and old holes. It was really cool..
We fire up the power auger and punched 6 holes to start, and the flasher showed fish right away. I immidiatly pulled 2 bass out with my jig pole, what a rush. Then it happened, i thought i had another bass on but instead pulled up a 13" perch! i thoght this is it, we will slay them. I manged a half dozen more bass before i got my second perch. then things got slow, and it was surely a morning bite gone dead. We swiss cheesed the ice and found a couple more perch and a ton of bass.
Now i got the bad news that Rolfs back went out as he stood up from his bucket. Oh boy, this is not gonna be pretty. We decided not to wait for the evening bite to start abd headed back out by noon. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get the sled back up out of that valley and back to the truck. This was like elk hunting with a sled! I had to do all the pulling because of rolfs back. he had to help push up the hills or we would have had to leave the sled and power auger until spring, and he owned them so he pushed, bad back and all.
I think i would go back there but only on new ice when the fishing is better and the ice is much thinner so we could just take a hand auger out there. The ice was 2 1/2 feet thick so going the first time without knowing the lake a power auger was a must.
Well i caught 3 of the 4 perch and about 25 bass. so it was still fun. We released al the bass, and shouldnt have because they are a bit stunted from overpopulation.
The next day we went for bluegills on a much easier lake and i limited out (25) before noon on jumbo gills, some up to 10".
It was a fun trip and i hope to return to the secret perch lake one time this coming summer to try it when the action it better. a honeyhole like that is hard to find(and get too) Here a few pics, including the sled from hell.
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schmalts,
Great story and as always those are awsum pics...

Sounds like a great time you had... sorry about your buddies back.....

How big were those bass? where they large mouth or smallies?


Delw
 
Great pics to a great day, seems like even the great ones have a few lumps in them...Thanks!!!!
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Delw, they were largemouth. Most were between 12-16" so they would have made a good cold water fillet. I think keeping a bunch would help the perch population too. they sure were fun ion a jig pole, i cant even imagine what it would be like to fish that in the summer for bass. every cast i bet you would get one. Thank god for GPS, it would have been a lot harder to find this little lake
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<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 02-03-2003 06:33: Message edited by: schmalts ]</font>
 
Schmalts..
We used to catch 1 every cast about 3 years ago... then the weather played a big part in changing that... when the lake is in the high 80's at night(water temp) the bite really turns on.... That usually takes about 4 months of 100+ degree days and a few weeks of 110+ days, not to mention the nights must stay 100+ for a month or so... 2 years ago in june was the first time I ever had to wear a windbreaker at night it got in the 70's april was fishing a tourny with me...


Delw
 
Delw, i used to fish Pina Blanca when i was a kid. You ever fished it?
 
Congrats on the fish sounds like an awesome time. I went to Illinois when I was a kid for 10 days and my cousin knew of a couple of those remote lakes you have to walk to. We had a blast and caught some stunted bass too. Real short and fat like a soda can... The smallies get like that in some of the rivers around here too when they over populate.
 
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