Howdy fishers and fisherettes, just got back from the exciting chestermere winter festival ice fishing tournament. This is an event where locals go out from calgary and try their luck on chestermere lake (more like a slough) and try to win a gas powered ice auger and other small prizes.
In the past two years I have come really close to a legal sized fish (63 cm) but never quite enough to get me in the winners circle... This year I had a plan... Practice practice practice. I went out every second weekend since new years and got pike fishing down to a science. The producing setup is pretty simple... one dead smelt sitting right on the bottoim, no drag on the reel (bail open) and wait for the line to start peeling out. On wednesday I went out for a pre-tournament practice run and got a 25 inch (just legal fish)... I released him down the hole and told him "Sit boy! Staaaay... good boy" Then I tossed him a nice smelt to re-enforce the good behavior. Today I went right back the that same hole, opened it up, and fired a big old smelt down there. Within 5 minutes I had my first bite. This fish was WAY under sized, and clearly my fish had not followed the instructions I gave him. That was pretty much it for me. My wife on the other hand had 12 bites and 3 fish on the ice! None were legal sized, but she outfished me and every single person around. People kept coming up and asking how we did it. (I have no idea).
In the end she placed 4th in the tournament and ended up with 85$ cashola. Next week is a big tournament where first prize is 25,000$ and down from that are trucks, quads, sleds and other great toys. You can bet that my wife is going with me!
J5
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Topic: Semi pro ice angler is created (Read 1118 times)