Ice came early this year in Northern Wisconsin. We had fishable ice during Wisconsin’s nine day deer hunt. Well, hunting was slow this year. A week before season I had a nice buck decide to create a rub and scrape line on the trail going to and from my stand. It was easy for others to notice and I had a lot of “LINK“ company opening morning! My fiancé, Aron, was having similar luck and so was our buddy, Zach. Well then Aron got an idea… We still have muzzleloader season… There is ice, let’s go ice fishing and let the craziness in the woods calm down. Ice fishing sounded like a great idea because like Tom Gruenwald always says, “Nothing beats ice fishing… Nothing!”
The first couple days we checked a lot of the inland lakes where we found 4-5” on most waters. We had a couple of great days fishing for crappies and bluegills with no one else even venturing onto the ice yet. Then Aron had another idea…. It was November and musky season was still open… When do we ever have ice in November and can fish muskies through the ice? We had to try it. Zach was coming back North from the twin cities on Thanksgiving so we gave him a call and asked him to pick up whatever he could for bait along the way, since our local shops were closed for the holiday.
Muskie Set-up
Black Friday was the day. We headed out to a small inland lake where the only species normally caught are perch and muskies. It is usually our “go to” spot whenever we feel like playing with muskies for a day in the summer. We loaded up our car with our spud bar, Vexilars, hand auger, Polar Fire power auger, a couple of pan fish rods and a pile of polar pop-ups. Like I have mentioned before we usually fish for big fish in big water and the polar pop-ups are great for this because you can adjust the magnet on the bottom, making it possible to adjust the spool tension, depending on what size bait you have or what you are fishing for.
Muskie Bait
The polar pop up was exactly what we needed to put large suckers down the ice hole. Any other tip-up would get tripped by such large baits, unless you had previously modified it for such a mission. We were able to adjust the polar pop ups so they didn’t budge unless something grabbed the large bait we had below. We sprinkled our polar pop ups all over the ice. Then I went off to hand auger some holes to see what I could catch for pan fish.
It wasn’t twenty minutes and we had a flag up! I threw my panfish rod to the side in an attempt to race the guys to the first flag! I could just see the pop up rocking from all the line screaming out of it on my way over there. There was definitely a musky on the end of that line. I carefully pulled up the pop-up and fed out some more line. Then when the line was tight I pulled back to set the hook and my heart sank! It seemed I’d lost it… I didn’t feel anything, so I started pulling the line in but…. Wait a minute… the line suddenly started screaming out of my hands…. So I set the hook again for good measure and the fight began. We were trying to film the whole thing, but when I thought I lost the fish Zach stopped filming, but fortunately, managed to tune back in and catch the last part of the fight on film!
Lacey With Muskie
It wasn’t a long fight. After a few runs I was able to pull her up to the hole and Aron lifted her out. She was a nice 40” musky. We took a few quick photos with her and released her back down the hole where she swam off without a problem. We reset the pop-up and I went back to reeling in two inch perch… yes the panfish were hungry and aggressive, just small. It wasn’t ten minutes later and we had another flag. This time Zach was up to the plate.
This flag was right next to where Zach and Aron were standing. Zach got down and pulled up the pop-up. It wasn’t pulling a lot of line; so again, we were thinking we might have lost it. Zach started slowly pulling in the line and felt some weight… and with a jerk to set the hook we had another musky on. He pulled it up to the hole and there was a beautiful 30” musky.
We snapped our pictures and released it, smiling, knowing this day was starting off better than planned! We weren’t even here an hour and we already had caught and released two beautiful muskies. Now we just needed Aron to pull one up and the day would be complete, and it wasn’t another fifteen to twenty minutes later and that is exactly what happened.
We had finished resetting Zach’s pop-up. I went to put away my panfish gear to go and be social with the guys and then the same pop-up that Zach just caught his musky on popped! We couldn’t believe it. Aron knelt down and started feeding more line immediately. This musky was ready for a fight! I knelt down to help Aron. One thing you have to be careful about with the pop-ups is how you lay them down after you pull them because the spool can catch on the legs, which can stop you from feeding line.
Aron Releasing Muskie
Whenever hand-lining a fish off a tip-up, if you have the extra person available, it is nice to have someone keep the line off of the ice and hold the spool to help retrieve or give line, as needed. When it’s cold, line can easily snag on the ice. If you have a fighting fish this can cause the line to snap if it catches the ice wrong and you could lose your fish. To prevent this from happening, I grabbed the line and stepped back so I could feed Aron line smoothly off the spool without it getting snagged on the ice. This musky made a couple of good runs but it wasn’t long and Aron had it iced.
It was a nice 37” musky, and again, this fish was released nicely. Unbelievable–three muskies caught and released in less than an hour and a half of being on the ice! What a day!
Aron and Lacey with Muskie
Anyone who has ever musky fished knows that it is not an easy thing to do. We did not land another musky after that third one, and with musky season now over, so are our attempts of doing this again this year. Overall, though, it was a very successful day. Three of us hit the ice and all three of us landed a beautiful musky.
Since we were not that successful in our deer blinds this gun season, I will repeat what Tom always says, “Nothing beats ice fishing… Nothing!”
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