 What's up guys? Joe Holland here. I am out here in Central Maine fishing for one of my absolute favorite fish to catch through the ice. I just got done catching the state's second most hated invasive, the crappie. Crappie. Calico. That's one I forgot last time. And now I'm moving on to one of my absolute favorites and one of the favorites of most of the ice fishermen in Maine now. I'm going after number one on the hit list for the state of Maine, the great Northern Pike. Pike have been in the state of Maine longer than I've been alive. They're still considered an invasive species. They're thriving in lakes that trout and salmon have really dwindled on for a long time. I just saw the biggest fish. They had fangs. They don't need to be stopped. Northern Pike gets an invasive species. It's not supposed to be here. And they're very dangerous to our ecosystem. They're terrifying. We're gonna look to try to break that. My personal best for the ice was just under 21 pounds and I've caught hundreds over the 10 pound mark over the years. It's been a few years since I put out a pike video because it's just such a it's such a weird thing here in Maine like going for these big fish people lose their minds and I've had a lot of people like come follow me to pike spots and set up right on top of me and use the same holes I used the day before and it just it gets a little nasty and kind of rub me the wrong way and we just have so many opportunities in the state to catch other fish that I decided last year just to move on and keep a good mindset and go catch other fish and take advantage of all our other opportunities. But I'm out here early on the first guy out here for pike. I'm hoping to get a big one. I am not leaving till I catch a double digit. I didn't bring a lot of food so hopefully I catch one within a couple days. Lucky for me I've been storing all this fat for years just in case I get into a situation like this and the fishing stuff and I'm not able to catch a double digit fish. My favorite part about pike fishing through the ice is you get a flag on your tip-off or trap and you have no idea if it's gonna be a 10 pounder, a 5 pounder or 25 pounder. That's the best part and you're going to that flag and it could be bigger than your leg and there's very few other opportunities we have in the state. Now that's a big part. We have musky and we have some lake trout like that but we don't have a great lake trout fishery for size. We have a we have great lake trout fisheries for numbers where you can go catch a hundred or more two to three pound fish. What pike gives us is that opportunity to catch something giant like a 20 pound fish. The second sled here go back at the floor some propane and a couple of last minute things some food and be back in hopefully get set up for dark. That floor is kind of a beast. I know I got to switch over to rubber, foam, interlocking ones eventually. It would have been perfect for this trip but I haven't done it yet so I really like my floor a lot. It's just dry and flat and nice so I brought it in. Took me two trips to get everything in. It wasn't too bad but trail riding is a little bit tough when you're bringing in a whole lot of weight. I didn't get a exact measurement on the ice. It's somewhere between five and a half and eight inches in that range there. I'm going to go ahead and set up on the ice. I don't think I'll fish from the tent itself you know like jigging in the tent but I will fish from it so the weather looks pretty mild for the next week you know 14 to 25 degrees which isn't too bad so I'm going to I'm really late today getting out here so what I'm going to try to do is hurry up and get set up as quick as I can so I have a place to sleep tonight. Looks like about six seven inches. Double check. I'm going to get a chance to clean my floor off. All right now that I'm set up let's check out camp. Here I have my cook station. I bring a little table here. These are like 40 dollars at your lows. It's like a plastic rubberized table. Metal leg seems to hold up. It's super lightweight and it fits perfectly in these pop-up tents I found you know there's plenty of room with a door and plenty of room between the wall and it's nice it's nice to have something you know this high to cook on so there's my cook stove. That's a new Coleman I'm trying out. I burnt a little bit of food last time. It's really hard. I think these things are made to do some deep frying or something with some serious heat because it's hard to control the temperature and keep it low enough I think. So I'll give you a good honest report on that after I use it a couple trips. Underneath I have like food and kitchen stuff and probably some fishing stuff in there. A couple things of water. I got my light over here. If you notice this year I don't have a bunch of lights hanging from the ceiling because I've pretty much replaced everything with this Milwaukee light this tower here and that thing's set on its lowest setting now. It'll go three settings. On a five amp hour battery I think it runs just over 10 hours on the lowest setting from what we used it for in deer camp. All right bag of clothes right there. Got my bed set up here with a cot and a cot pad. Got my trusty aluminum chair right here. Fish and stuff there. Got the live scope and garment unit there. A bag full of batteries there for the auger for the Milwaukee stuff and that's about it for camp. Got the floor underneath me so I'm super sturdy. Gonna be really dry. Gonna be really nice and then out here I have my bait which I have some amazing shiners in there for pike. I brought the Markham to use. Try out the camera a little bit see if we can get the pike biting on camera. A lowering pack basket these things are indestructible. Got my pike traps in there and some jig rods and then out here I brought the 40 volt 10 inch auger. I also still have the pistol bit light flight there and I throw my propane canister outside just in case any leaks or to have some more room outside too. Snowmobile set up and we are ready to go for for that early bite first thing in the morning. I probably won't get a lot of sleep tonight and it won't be because of a 40 to 60 mile an hour wind like last time. It's gonna be because I'm excited to get that first line and first flag in the water and see if I can get a double digit here. Well they are pretty quick all set up guys. That didn't take long. If you guys are planning on doing some winter ice camping yourselves one thing I would recommend is not waiting till late in the day like I did you know that's one thing I try to avoid just kind of happen that way today just in case you have any trouble with your your snowmobile your four-wheeler or whatever you're using for transportation or if something goes wrong or you realize you forgot something it leaves you a lot of time with the light of day so if you're new at it for sure make sure you get an early break on it in the morning get all your packing down the day before or the night before. If you've done it a bunch obviously you know what you need to do and you could be pretty quick at it but you still want to leave yourself some room just for air especially this time of year when the weather's rough or it's cold but I got him here pretty quick and set up super quick tonight. I just broke down from a trip two days ago where I was up north catching crappie there's a tag right here if you haven't seen that one that was a three-day trip with some really rough weather so everything's ready to go it's everything's actually still frozen and wet it's pretty mild I'd say so setting up was a breeze there's no breeze or wind which is crazy nice I like that a lot pretty awesome day just being able to get all the way in here and everything ran flawlessly snowmobile no problems sleds behind me no problems got everything in here didn't break anything it's really going pretty good weather's good like crazy mild right now I don't even know what to do it's 19 degrees Fahrenheit and blowing five to ten so nothing crazy there I don't know what to do it's not blowing 40 or 50 miles an hour and below zero kind of feels weird I'm like wonder if this is some kind of calm before the storm but it looks good for the week coming up looks good there crazy excited to get out fishing tomorrow the pike man they just kind of get my blood boil especially in the winter it's really really a fun fish to catch they're smart they're uh you know they you can catch smaller ones pretty easy and you could run into a big one too but to target just big ones and actually catch them is is a challenge and it's uh man it's nothing like it when you get a flag and you're going up to it and could be bigger in your leg you know and big old teeth and just an awesome predator fish and you know there's a lot of a lot of people that that really enjoy catching big fish and you can't do it here for for much you know some guys will run into a big tog once in their life maybe or decent salmon or decent brown but to get something up over 20 pounds is your best bet's a pike or a musky I'm stoked for tomorrow I got all the gear pretty well ready I got the coffee pot is ready to go I just got to turn a button and turn it on and breakfast is ready to go I got the potatoes already in the pan and got the bread old buttered up ready to go on the griddle it's I'm just excited I I'm ready to go in the morning I'll probably be upright and early coyotes were howling a little bit earlier the ice is making some cracks making some noise that's always a good sound I want to take this opportunity to really thank you guys for supporting the channel the channel has been growing really well I put a ton of hard work into it this it's it's basically a small channel and you know pretty much small budget channel I run it off go pros I don't have a guy videoing or two guys videoing and another guy editing and working on all the footage and you know working everything out behind the scenes like your other big fishing channels have to me it's the go pros and it's out here just working as hard as I can to not only get you guys a good footage but also to get it uploaded and edit it and it's just so much fun for me to do and I can't thank you guys enough for the support you know there's nothing better for me than opening up my youtube studio and getting a bunch of really positive comments and and and learning that I inspired people to either go ice camping or go ice fishing or just getting outside or or do stuff like that there's three things that are really important to my channel and and every time I shoot a video if I hit these three things then I consider the video a success the first is to be able to inspire someone you know whether it be to just get out and try ice fishing or try winter camping or or just try going to catch a crappy or or using electronics or anything pretty much that you see me doing the second is to educate and pass on the wealth of information that people have taught me and educated me for fishing and going outdoors and and just being able to get yourself out of bad situations and even getting yourself into bad situations but uh education is a really important part to the channel and then the third and the least most important is the entertainment value you know it's it's got to be entertaining too and in my opinion so some videos you get one some you get two and to me a successful video would have three and you know those are the things that I shoot for when I'm making the videos and I really enjoy bringing you guys along and and I really enjoy the community that that's growing around this channel so I just want to say thank you guys to that heartfelt thank you right there and and I look forward to making a ton of videos this winter and hopefully you guys keep enjoying them as much as I enjoy making them guys this is not a rerun but for dinner tonight guess what we're having I'm going to have a pack of dea burger got some pablo auto peppers going in the pan and I just so happened to have a can of some classic beef gravy made by Food Club in 2001 that's been on the shelf for a while I bet you she's still good it won't go bad but I'm gonna throw that all in the pot and let it simmer for a little while and boy that's good gravy good grub well dinner's looking good it's almost done if I hadn't spent all my money on fish and stuff I would have had enough to get put some potatoes and onions in there that's amazing once his head starts you could drop him right on the ice go ahead yeah that feels better that might be a jumbo that might be a jumbo that's a good one oh yeah that's a mega jumbo look at that one guys what's up what's going on you brought the bolster demon I forgot brother was your gas don't worry about it I got you a breakfast I come back tomorrow anyways I'll bring you bread sweet I got some huge yeah yeah we just wailed like three or four crappy that's something big came up just nailed it so I've been fighting it for a couple minutes all right now bring him up yes sir new pb yes sir nice 15 easy I'm on like seriously 20th run right now there he comes again there he is grab it grab it get him get him get him get him yeah 30 40 it's 40 inches 20 inches around I'm almost out of breath I'm so excited look at this oh my god that big gator they're terrifying they're terrifying