 Coffee's ready, got a thermos bowl, that'll ensure a nice hot cup all day. I think I'm going to cook up a nice breakfast this morning, get some eggs and English muffin. It's pretty raw out there, the wind's ripping pretty good. We got some sleet and rain and maybe a little bit of mixed snow coming down right now. So it's a good morning to stay in camp for a little while longer. Oh yeah, it's windy. It's ripping, so I think I'm going to enjoy my coffee. I'll fish this one hole I got in the shack for now and wait till the wind dies down a little bit. Wind stinks, man. I mean, everybody knows that unless you're out there sailing boat or flying a kite. Wind really takes the fun out of a lot of things. So I don't have any problems sitting here, you know, fishing this one hole and enjoying the peace and solitude, drinking some hot coffee, maybe reading my book. Well it's mid-morning, got my first cup of coffee down, got the dishes done, got everything pretty well cleaned up, got my book about three-quarters of the way red and the wind just kind of subsided a little bit, slowed down. It just started to sleet and snow, but I'm going to get geared up and go out there and set some lines, maybe catch a brook trout for lunch, go try my hand to smear that jig in with the camera. And then probably this afternoon I'm going to head out with a snowmobile, grab the generator so I can get all these batteries charged up. Oh, there goes the wind again. I'm going to go grab the battery chargers and the generator and probably haul a load of stuff out of here too, you know, the stuff I won't need any longer like the drone or or a 30 laundry and some empty stuff too and some trash, so that way less to take out when I finally do all out of here. That's the plan for today, we'll see how it goes. Looks like this storm just got a little bit serious. It's blowing straight sideways, snowing pretty hard. I'm going to go out because I think we're going to get some pretty decent accumulation. I'm going to go out and just make sure all my stuff is rounded up so it doesn't get buried in the snow. That way I know where to dig it out after the snow is over and make sure everything looks good outside. Oh yeah, it's snowing. Wow, yeah, snow's pretty good. So yeah, that's pretty much camp. You can't see down the lake anymore across the lake. We're all batting down, everything looks good there. I'm going to put a couple twists in this thing. There if I need it. Alright, back in. The nice part about coming on an extended trip like this is I'm not in any rush to fish. If it's blowing this bad, I could actually be a semi-fair weather fisherman, so I'm going to let this blow through and see how much accumulation we might get afoot. I don't know, it's coming pretty hot and heavy right now and it's blowing straight sideways, so we'll see what happens. It is ripping nasty out there. I'm kind of glad I stayed in this morning. I'm going to probably stay and camp a little bit while longer. I mean, you could hear the gust. This isn't even strong gust yet. It's been wanting to push the tent right over. I'm glad I got those stakes in the ground, in the ice and pulled tight because otherwise this tent would be in the woods somewhere and I'd be pretty cold. But it's blowing sideways, snow's starting to build up a little bit, and it is ripping out there. So it's a good day to be inside. Alright, got a light fish. Had to resort to the drop shot. But there he is. 25 foot of water. They get pretty soft mouths. This one's not going to keep. They've got to be 16 inches to keep. But that was fun catching. Pretty white fish. Nope, I was going to make it. Got another one. Man, these guys are so hard to catch. Nice white fish. Get a measurement on him. Guys, I've never eaten white fish. I've always heard they're great. I always wanted to, but... I'm out here in the wilderness right now inside this. I could eat that thing and no one would know, but I would know. So it's important to follow your game laws. There's a reason why they set these things at 16 inches. They want them to make a comeback. So back down the hole he goes. Hopefully I get one 16 inches so I can see how they taste. All right. I figured out what was up in the water column. Jig and smelt now. I just switched up to the tiniest jig I have. On the smallest pound test that I had. And I put just the tip of a tail of a gulf on there. And that sucker bit it. Flayed afternoon. Caught a handful of smelt. Handful of white fish. Didn't really leave camp much at all today. I went out and kind of secured all the perimeter again. The gusts have pretty well slowed down, but the wind is still ripping pretty good and it's still snowing. Got quite a bit of accumulation. I was expecting maybe six inches to a foot. I think I got quite quite a bit more than that already. And no sign of it letting up anytime soon as far as the snow goes. Let's take a look at what we got out there right now. You figure if that propane tank it was sitting on top of the snow before this morning and just today the thing's almost fully covered. So that's got to be what 18 inches tall or so. So we're going to have a decent amount of snow. I'm going to have to be careful getting out of here. I'm still planning on fishing tomorrow if it stops tonight sometimes. So I'll be making a run with an empty jet sled out more than likely to get the generator so I can get all these batteries recharged and keep shooting videos and stuff. And then after that should be able to get some fishing in tomorrow. It's getting near dark out there. I'm going to go out one more time to assess the situation. Make sure all my corners are tied down fast and dig out the propane tank, see how much I got left in there and bring it a little closer to the top. Up to the top of the tank. Feels like I got a decent amount left. Maybe a quarter of a tank. So I got to be careful with that. The tie-downs are buried in pretty hard. Well everything looks good out there. Got a lot of snow. I got a decent amount of propane. I got like six more one-pounders under there. I'm not going to lie and say I'm not a little bit worried about how much snow I ended up getting. It's probably over two foot now. Or at least it's drifted up to two foot. Not 100% sure on the snowmobile. On its limitations as far as getting out in the powder. But first thing tomorrow morning if it ever stops snowing I'm going to have to go make a test run to make sure I can get out of here without all the gear first. See how it reacts in the powder. Snowing pretty good. Got at least double what we were expecting up here. So I got enough food to last a couple weeks at least. I can catch some out of this hole here. But as far as propane goes that could be an issue. I ran this buddy heater basically on low for the last 24 hours straight which I wasn't planning on doing. I usually don't run it at all when I'm out fishing but I wasn't planning on being inside fishing all day. Tomorrow I guess I'll have to reassess the situation. See about an exit plan. Enough tomorrow then I'll try to keep fishing a couple more days. If not then it might take me a couple days to get out of here. I do have a shovel and I got a snowmobile and I got five extra gallons of gas so we'll see what happens. Well it's 6.30. I'm going to shut down the heater and go no heat tonight for as long as I can bear it. I'm in the sleeping bag but I want to start saving some of that propane with this storm. I'm not 100% sure I can get out of here anytime soon. We'll see tomorrow morning. I think it's a pretty good idea just to bundle up for tonight. Start conserving some of that propane. We got a taker. Oh something small on there. Real small. I wonder what this is. A little burbot. Oh nice burbot. Yes sir. Look at all that line. Oh man. I knew better than that. Nice burbot. Alright that was worth getting out of bed for. Nice cusk on the rattle reel. I can honestly say that's the first fish I've ever caught ice fishing in my boxers. This isn't good. Just woke up and put my foot down into four inches of water. I guess all that snow turned slush in here and everything's pretty well floating so it's going to be pickup camp today I think. Definitely got to move camp. There's a couple inches of water in the shack right now. Hopefully I can get off the ice. Well folks I'm in trouble. I don't say that often but I definitely screwed up. I got slushed in. I made one trip to get to the shore over there. Made it no problem without slush. I stayed on top of the snow. Did a big loop around here to go back and pack down the trail and buried her in the slush there and it looks like or feels like there's not much for snow ahead of me other than slush and I got to come back about 30 feet to get out of the slush so it's bad. I got four inches of slush underneath the snow in most spots. Alright folks that's what I woke up to. Three or four inches of water inside the tent this morning. It wasn't very pleasant putting my feet down into that water but it gave me one heck of a wake up call. This trip went south in a hurry. I got myself into a serious situation here. It's pretty serious. It could be real bad. I gave it all she had when she started hitting the slush but it didn't matter. There's just enough crust above the slush to kind of hold up the front end and the motor and then the track just spun. You can see this. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of slush on top of the ice water. Probably five inches. This is where I buried her. Lucky for me I brought a shovel which was a good move and I went ahead and I dug out the entire trail exposing the slush and then I threw loose snow on top of the slush and just packed it in with my boot from here till you could see where I stopped digging. I basically firmed it up enough so the snowmobile would stay on top of it to where I guessed I was out of the slush and I just punched it. Gave it all that little 370 had and she made it over to the other trail so as you could see there's always a way of getting out it's just that cost me a good hour hour and a half this morning. Situation like that it was just I mean I'm my only way out here. I'm the only help I'm going to have so I got to figure it out myself and when you get in bad situations like this you just got to keep your head together. That's the most important thing you know your party wants to start to panic or get scared or worried and it's okay to be scared or worried but it's not alright to panic because then you start making decisions that are going to affect the rest of your time out and aren't good. My situational awareness was terrible and that slush came in last night didn't have a clue what happened woke up and it was there but I should've definitely moved the camp off the ice before that storm but should've and would've they ain't going to help much now they'll help for the next time I guarantee you that so yeah so I packed down just about every inch of this by boot first and dug the snowmobile out of that wet hole there it's kind of heavy to lift you know especially with that slush and stuff on there I had to lift it up and bang it down a couple and then slide it over inch by inch till I got it up on firm ground that I made with my boots and then it was good to go so plan now is I'm actually going to stop and make myself some coffee and eat some breakfast I know it sounds foolish I got a long day ahead of me but you know mother always said you can't do your best if you don't eat a good breakfast I'm not even a bit hungry because because I'm nervous about getting out of here but I definitely need to eat I know that I need to keep my energy up because I'm going to need it probably isn't the only patch of slush I'm going to hit I'm safe from where the snowmobile is right now all the way to that shore over there which is the shore I need to get to so that's safe I can't get the snowmobile any closer than that to the ice shack so I'm going to just lug everything over in the sleds I might make 10 trips to get everything off the ice and when I get off the ice I feel a lot safer I can camp in the woods if I need to so that's the plan for right now is go get some coffee and breakfast and then start taking down camp and bringing it over to the shore I'm going to unload everything there and then try to make my way out to the truck without getting buried hopefully I don't and if I could do that and pack trail a couple times then I'll I'll I'll take all the gear out of here now it'll be the end of this fishing trip that wasn't good I just hit an ice hole what are the f**ks is there damn it that sucked I went over my f**king boot damn it well Oscar always told me to put some snow on it kind of same ideas he's on my ankle right now so I'll put the snow there to try to sponge it off I'm going to get out of this slush right now damn it that was bad I don't need any more of that crap what a freaking chance to hit that one that was a lot more perfect than my boot where I drilled the hole the other day I had no idea it was there alright regroup got the heater going try to dry these pants so I can get them zipped up again they got all slushed in and opened up so I want to zip them down and button them up and dry that boot dry that boot that got wet I'm taking down camp one piece at a time moving it out to a little bit drier weather while making some coffee and drier ground then then the first stage I'll be getting it out to the dry side of the lake alright breakfast is ready got some porridge got some coffee got most everything cleaned up I got the propane roll one to try to dry this out a little bit so I can get it zipped back up and buttoned up my leg got slushed in pretty hard especially when I fell in my foot is a little bit wet but not too bad and I'm not really concerned about it at all it's not terribly cold outside it's probably 15 degrees out there so the wind isn't moving much so I should be ok as long as I keep moving I'm going to eat some breakfast drink a little bit of coffee and then take down this tent which is not going to be easy now that I'm pretty well slushed in but we're going to get wet so that's kind of the price you pay when you make mistakes I'd love to sit here and completely dry out in front of this propane I'm still not out of the woods literally I'm going to need that propane if I get stuck over there on the other side or if I only make it a mile or even 5 miles or 10 miles and break down and have to reset up camp again and stay in the woods so don't burn up all your propane alright I got most of the stuff out started to get packed up let's take a look at the water in here I'm going to go ahead and guess the culprit right there having that hole in here made it a lot worse I mean there was slush on the lake when I showed up in certain spots after following through in that hole where I hit most of the slush I got to believe just the weight of all the snow pushing down on the ice makes it so the holes that didn't freeze over water comes up through that with the ice settling down I heard it settle at like 10 last night I heard it crack a couple times that must have been the ice actually settling with all this weight on top of it but that's not what you're looking for in a camp and it's going to be I think it's going to be a challenge digging out all these anchors too because they're slushed and frozen in the clasp is frozen up there we go that wasn't good everything's getting a little bit harder right now wind's starting to pick up and the camps are definitely dropping so can't bring around pretty long I'll tell you that yeah I'm just going to have to chop away the ice around it that's all alright that's the last one got all those now it's time to see if I get the shack right out from all that slush looks like we've got another storm coming in wind's ripping pretty good now and it's snowing again that's not good it's time to get the hell out of here alright that's everything first trip like I said to get across that lake that's all we got to do is get to that bank first and then the work starts that is it three loads to get just across the ice but hey I get for two loads it's important anywhere you camp whether it be on dry land campsite wilderness or on the lake to leave a nice clean campsite so there it is right there pretty much a little bit of coffee on the ice over there this is the third load to get across the ice I'm even getting rid of that stick I don't want to leave that out here just in case anybody else comes out ice fishing I don't want them to have to drill through it or something stupid like that with their auger so third load and then we're going to see if I can get out of here we're officially out of campsite alright I got everything to the safe spot just unhooked the snowmobile I'd love to take a load out and try it but man it's an absolute nightmare if you get stuck with just the snowmobile let alone towing gear and that might actually make me stuck if I hit some slush I don't know what that's all about alright I'm going to see if I can make it out of here across the lake and up through the woods to the truck and start packing a trail the peak was the hardest part with the snowdrifts we got about two foot maybe a little bit more last night of super soft powder so the sled keeps wanting to kind of bury self down and get stuck but the lake you know I just kept her pin almost wide open and a couple times it bogged down felt like I was going to get stuck but luckily she came out of it the trails weren't too bad they're steep and they got a lot of bumps so I got to be careful there there was one blow down I had to kind of go over and around and then the old login road a couple spots in that I wanted to kind of bury down too so I'm going to go back through and pack at least one more time and take the first load out maybe a light load the first time thought I was good but it was slush thought it was just a snowdrift I made it through at once man this is going to suck I got some digging to do I'm glad I got the shovel man I'm so glad I made that coffee I packed the trail down about five times found out where the slush is where it's not got stuck two or three times had to dig out first load is ready to go pretty good size load the next load is going to be fairly light hopefully I can make it out there's one spot with slush that I have to go through other than that should be pretty clear sailing then I got a steep ridge to go over so I'll just get this stuff off the lake and then we'll go over there yes sir made it out with the first load I really like this hitch system I'll show you guys how I built that later on but it looks like everything's still there which is pretty sweet unload it go back and get another one well that's it folks the lake is angry right now there's no NATO's turning around out there it's hard to see probably with the camera but they're happening tornadoes it's ripping pretty well gone after a couple minutes because the wind's blowing it over so hard got everything loaded a little bit lighter load this time got some nasty slush to go through I've gone through it a bunch of times I'm hoping I can get through it one more time I'm going to punch it we'll see what happens wish me luck okay made it out made it through that big slush hole it was tough not going to lie I bounced around a couple times and bogged down be stuck there that would not have been fun not a good way to end the trip but I made it through, made it out got both loads out trucks here I don't know if you guys can see it or not but I put a note on my window that's always a good idea hang it up you know I put it there so it wouldn't get covered in snow like the windshield would saying where I was planning on fishing where I might go if I don't fish there and when I'm planning on getting out because the weather and the slush forced me out a little sooner than I'd like so that's a little bit disappointing but I'm pretty excited that I made it out because that could have gone a lot different way if you know what I mean all in all the fishing what little I did was absolutely amazing I get to catch some species that I don't normally catch way up here in northern Maine never saw a person, still haven't seen a person never got bothered by anybody pretty much had the entire wilderness to myself and a pine martin for tritters and a couple eagles and ravens and a couple other birds I gotta look up what they are when I get home absolutely amazing, the little 370 twin fan cooled ran absolutely amazing, first time out first time on a trip, I had it I just picked the thing up not too long ago and had it out twice very new to snowmilling as you can tell so I'm gonna have to learn some things the hard way as I normally do