 Good morning. It is a little bit after 5 a.m. It has warmed up to a pretty warm negative one degrees Anytime it warms up that much Overnight like geez I guess it warmed up. It was negative 22 It means one of a few things it means it's either gonna snow it did snow or Both so I haven't been outside yet. I thought I heard a little bit of movement on the roof So there's a chance we had some snow. There's a chance it's snowing right now pretty excited for today on a musky water To try to catch some musky. I'm also gonna try to jig one. I've never caught one on a jig rod That'd be really fun. I think I've got pike. I've got pickerel Which are in the same family on jig rods and man They just they're a lot of fun because they make some really long hard runs on you and peel just a bunch of drag Breakfast this morning is Gonna be some potatoes with onions and peppers mixed in and I'm in luck today. My buddy's wife who's also my friend Chrissy makes the best bread homemade bread I've ever had she says it's easy, but she says everything's easy. She makes everything look pretty easy But every time I go up there. She makes that bread and it is incredible So I'm gonna throw some butter on that bread and throw that in the pan and crisp that up And probably a couple of chicken eggs And we're gonna have a pretty good breakfast to drive into me before the day today. I'm gonna run out get the bait Come back in and get set up for musky For some reason my coffee's not perking. I've never had that happen before I don't know if I put too much water in or not. So I took out a cup of water That water is ripping boiling Doesn't want to come up through the spout Maybe the bottom's bent or something. I don't know Well, I could keep pouring it over it. I guess That pan's done, but I'm waiting for the coffee. It's plenty hot enough. I know that Guess I just had to prime the pop Never had that happen Well toast is ready. Potatoes are ready Got room for one egg in there Let's give it to her. She frozen frozen solid Almost solid Come on out of there. How's the frozen egg sound? well, we're gonna have a frozen egg and Got some leftover steak so we could have steak and eggs Alright, let's see what she looks like out there Yep, definitely got a little bit of snow snowing right now Zip tie these down just so they don't open up on the trail. No idea the depth here First time ever on this lake. I know it's supposed to be 20 or it could be 14 Which is quite a difference for the deepest spot. So what we have is a main lake point here We got some flow going that way. So a really good spot to start is right off the point. So I'm about 120 feet off the point and I'm gonna set my string out according to depth I'd really like to find like a weed edge or drop off Not being a big musky fisherman myself. I might be able to catch some shallow I might be able to catch some deep. This is a really good way to figure it out And I forgot my battery back in the shack Be right back Got it. Well, she's definitely dirty water. Oh, no water right there. Wow All right, we got about She's three foot Is it worth setting? So we got to get out in the lake a lot further to find some water Now I don't even think I want to set this one Let's get a little deeper. All right, we got at least six there. That's good. So there's six plus the leader All right, we got about ten foot. That's a good start How about that for bait? That is a monster. That's a sea smelt right there guys That's a that's a good size or right there. We're gonna set him Couple feet off the bottom. All right, I was setting up my hut To jig out of and we got a high flyer first trap I set Let's go take a peek. I'm not doing anything right now Might have just been the bait Now she's off to the side. Okay Can't tell Might have just been bait. Let's see if she's chewed It's not chewed. Could have been the bait. I'm gonna go ahead and tuck that up into my rubber band I will give it one more try actually. I got four traps in Leaving me one extra line so I could jig with In Maine you're allowed five lines per person on most bodies of water. That's general state law Got kind of a cool sky for snowing looks like the Sun's poking through and we got some clouds It's snowing pretty hard down Lake But it looks like it's gonna clear off pretty soon. I'm setting up that Otter XT Pro I think it's the cabin And it's fighting me today. Usually it's pretty easy. I've only used it a couple times so far since I bought it But today it's fighting me pretty had. I don't know what's going on So I'll go figure it out Get that set up and get inside and do some jigging with the electronics All right, so that smelt's tripped me twice I'm gonna go ahead and put them inside my bait band So you can't do that again. I'll show you guys how that works. I got a bait band on the bottom of my trap Just a rubber band. I'm gonna get it up to The depth I want to set it roughly right there. I pinch the line back Make a loop pinch the line back lift up that rubber band and just tuck it underneath and if you put it in the corner It gets even more tension on it. So now that That smell is only pulling against The rubber band he's not pulling against the reel anymore and then when a fish hits it You hope he hits it with enough force. He will hit it with enough force where he rips it right out of that rubber band and then It engages the spool and the spool engages the flag mechatism So the next time that baby goes up should be a fish Probably haven't had more flags that trap out there. I just put a little shiner on with a two-out hook These ones right here. These three all have big huge sea smelts on them with two to four-out hooks All right, it's nine o'clock and I haven't had a real flag yet I just had the two flags that pretty sure the smelt tripped that So it's time to move around see if we could find some fish I can't believe if they're in here that they're not gonna bite. So let's make a move Finally we got a high flyer. Let's go get him That should be a fish feels like the baiting can't tell if there's a fish there or not Should just hit him. It was a fish. I ripped it out Leave that there so the reel doesn't freeze up go get some bait Well, I just saw a moose right up here just ran up into the Ridge I came off the lake real quick just to look at this trail And a moose just ran up there didn't have any antlers They shouldn't have any this time of year so I can't tell what it was But I'm gonna go up turn around and get back on the traps Well, it's a little after 11 a.m. And Not really doing too well I haven't I haven't got one fish yet Might have just had one messing with me something real small, but it could have just been the smell. That was a tank smell Not knowing the pond. I don't know if it's slow And I just got to wait it out or if I got to jump around and find them But kind of feeling like I got to go find them. So I think I'm gonna go eat a grilled cheese sandwich and And then I'm gonna move some traps even more ship them into this cove I'm thinking like if I'm gonna try to catch a pickerel or a pike Then I was back home I would definitely look for like a grassy shallow cove and then a drop off outside of it I'm not really finding any deep water at all And I've jumped around like seven or eight different holes for jigging and the deepest I found is about 10 11-foot tops. I'm finding really really small yellow perch I guess they're yellow perch and they're about the size of my lure and they come up and Kind of play with my lure for safety in numbers. I think But they're not even really catchable. I've had a couple nip at it So time to eat a grilled cheese and then regroup and Try to pull it together. I in the meantime what I did was I just went around checked all my bait I rebate All right, just shifted one. We've got a cove over here. I'm guessing it's Weedy Had about eight foot of water which surprised me. I didn't know how shallow it was gonna get I might be able to go in further if I shipped another one, but not catching fish not getting flags You gotta you got to get out fishing and this is fishing is moving them around and trying different depths just like trying different lures and making different types of cast when you're When you're open water fishing or try in different areas of the lake so Similar, you know, the conditions aren't terrible today, so I can move around pretty easy, too So I'm gonna find these fish if they're in here Might have to go to the other end of the lake to do it But we're gonna make sure this end of the lake see they're good or bad first All right, we got a flag. This was a small sucker Looks like we got some wine missing That's good off to the side pretty good like to see it go again. It feels all right. He bit me off Dang it. I was like a probably four-pound muskie Four-pound muskie went to get him out of the hole and Cut me off. They got crazy sharp teeth, but got a good look at him. It's beautiful beautiful green colors on them So they're in here It's about 12 30 had two flags since noon. So starting to pick up. Maybe it's an afternoon deal here We go get another hook and give another bait and re-rig All right one. I don't like driving under widow makers like that too I could use those as dead heads to hold down my shack in this wind All right, that should block the wind those walls in I don't know if you saw him yesterday's but my screw downs All got dulled or bent pretty good and I only was able to get two in the ice. So I got one on each corner of the shack diagonally And I didn't have anything to go to the tie downs or the other corner So I'll put a bunch of snow down on the apron to hold it down from blowing away and then this This log right here should be enough to hold the sides from blowing in. It's no fun when the side blows in knocks your table over Knocks everything off the table on the floor or on your bed. I've had that happen before in a hurry putting another little shift on Doesn't seem like the outside ones. We're getting any action. So I'm gonna set them in a little So far the only action I've had to been inside Not too far from the bank. So we're gonna we're gonna run with that for today doesn't mean that's the answer but because we don't really have enough data to Just shifted this one and she's up Straight down maybe looks pretty well straight down Feels like nothing Maybe Something little nibbling on it. I can't just beat my smoke. Can it? Feels like something a little bit more than my smoke But not a lot more Now he feels like he dropped it Not really chewed or anything Guys, it's 3 30 and I don't have any fish on the ice at all. This is crazy. It's tough day Shouldn't be fishing a new body of water that I don't know a lot about it could be a slow lake Could be I brought too big a bait So far the two that got whacked pretty good, you know the one I broke off on was a small shinier and Then the other one was a smaller sucker So they haven't really been mowing on the sea smelt think I pulled the sea some out at a one's mouth But if it if it was it wasn't a very big fish So could be I just got the wrong bait could be they're not biting could be there's not many in here a lot of Factors could be in play right now But I've shifted every trap except for two and I've shifted a couple of them even more than once So I think I got them and what I think is gonna be the best areas. I've had three legitimate flags And I'm kind of keying in on that depth and that distance from shore for the other ones that I just shifted And we got about hour and a half left to sunlight to try to get one bite It is four o'clock I'm gonna go around and give them all one more shake up try to get that smell of skunk out of the air That's settling in pretty hard One last chance No fish on the ice Had a couple chances there definitely had a couple Hits and hit and runs and then of course I had that one in the hole Had its head just about out and the line snipped I swear these musky have sharper teeth than pike because That wasn't that big a fish. He was under five pounds and he hit that 30 pound like it was nothing He sliced it like a hot knife going through butter. I don't really know what went wrong I gotta go with location. I guess more than anything. I mean, it could have just been they weren't biting It could be that I have too big of bait, you know with those great big sea smells I was pretty surprised when I was Whole hopping earlier try to find some muskier perch, you know, the only perch I was seeing on the Pan optics were probably two inches, you know, two to four inches at best They were tiny they couldn't even get to the hook. So maybe they're eating a lot of really small stuff in here But tomorrow what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna head down Lake, which is actually up Lake I'm gonna head to the southern end, which is the which is the inlet the outlets on the north end of this one There's a weird area of Maine where it flows north. So I'm gonna head down and try to fish that area I'm guessing there's more grass down there when my buddy Jeffrey fishes this in open water He said there's a pretty good couple good grass lines down there that he's caught some musky in But it was years ago. So hopefully there's some more fish in this pond. I'll mix it up I'm gonna go through my tackle again And I'm gonna probably tie some steel leaders with smaller hooks and I'm gonna send down some of those shiners The biggest shiners I can get down home were like two two and a half inches So maybe we'll get a little bit more action with those some smaller hooks some shiners And the steel leader hopefully won't I mean this water is super tannic like it's crazy Tannic when you pull up the auger just Everything turns like tape. So I doubt it has to be Fluorocarbon so I might switch for leaders and just put one for fluorocarbon and then put some smaller hooks on go with some smaller bait I'll still throw down a big sea smelt and like an average size sucker and then the rest I'll try Shiners tomorrow. I am gonna dress down get these bibs off and then make sure I'm dry everywhere and probably do a little bit more Reading it's still early for dinner and then figure on something for dinner tonight I know I got some greens in there. I want to eat up temp is dropping pretty hard right now We're at negative two it peaked out today at eight above zero. So that was kind of pleasant for a little while there I had a couple flags Like mid-morning that could have been the bait it could have been something tripping it and then the the real flags where there Would definitely fish running all happened like between 12 and 12 30 and then nothing after that So I fished hard, you know, I move traps. I I Reset the bait up and down I change bait out switch traps around inside outside Yeah, just didn't work out sometimes that happens on your fishing could happen on your home water that you're used to and The chances go up when you're somewhere else I mean I grew up fishing a lot of small ponds and small lakes and I always said there's such a thing as small pond syndrome where Everything's either on or everything's either off, you know There's no like decent fishing in it like when you're on a great big lake You could usually find areas that the fish are still biting but on these little bodies of water It seems like it's either all on or all off and I'd have to say today was all off. I hope So tomorrow Let's hope for it being all on. It's gonna be pretty bitter cold. I think tomorrow. We'll see not super hungry for much for dinner tonight I got all sorts of food here, but I think I'm just gonna drive some okra into me with a big slice of homemade toast And call that pretty good Okra, I just throw it in the pan with some olive oil and garlic and Put it on low heat and kind of let it crisp up a little bit boy. Is that good? That's a pretty good dinner Well, that's gonna do it for tonight guys. Sorry. I couldn't get any fish on the board for you No one's more upset about it than me though. I guarantee you that but I'm not really upset about it It's it comes and goes. I mean I've had days where it's just smash your days where your non-stop flags and catching fish and Every once in a while you got to have one of these days where you get skunked or or lose one at the ice or at the boat So you remember how tough the days can be and how good the days are on the opposite side So, you know, you've got to take the good and the bad the highs and the lows still a great day I'm up here. I haven't seen a person for over 24 hours. It's been Jesus has been probably 35 hours No, not quite Yeah, over 35 hours probably I haven't seen another person I have this whole wilderness to myself right now So that's pretty awesome. I did see a moose today I couldn't get the camera out quick enough for you guys when I was checking out a trail To a login road. There was a moose in the road. It was pretty cool to see I was probably a hundred yards from it But it's cadet up on top of a ridge before I could pull the camera out and go pros aren't really ideal for a wildlife videography either But it was cool. It's not every day you get to see a moose while you're ice fishing and I did see a musky I had almost forgotten how emerald that green is and how pretty that is it's like it's almost like curly tiger maple on a on a nice piece of furniture, but With that emerald green mixed in it's it's oh, it's just such a beautiful fish And I had him by the I had him for a second. He just slipped away I was hoping you know with 20 something inches of ice that he'd be pinned in that hole And if it was a bigger fish it would have been But he was small enough he could kind of get turned and back back down pretty quick But I'm gonna hit the rack. I am going to a little bit more reading I'm pretty pretty much into this book called the Penobscot man about the river drives on the Penobscot River and Talking about the history of a ball and rip a genus and in a lot of cool areas that I Spent some time in some really old stories. I think the book was published in 1904. Thanks again for tuning in guys Hopefully better luck tomorrow. I will be racking my brain all night on how I could do a better job catching fish We're definitely gonna try further down and against a bank tomorrow to see if we can find a weed line And we'll try in and out down there and maybe even try jigging too. I re-rigged all my tackle except for one We're gonna run fluorocarbon on one has a decent size hook I'll throw a smelt on that one and the other four now have 30 pound wire leader to a two-ot gomakatsu hook will dunk some of the shiners even though They're fairly small and what's left of the suckers to they say muskies like the fish of either a thousand cast or ten thousand Cast I don't know which one it is But I'm just hoping it's not the fish of a thousand flags or ten thousand flags because I did have a handful of flags today on the bright side and Don't really have much to show for it, but That is fishing Did he eat it? I think he ate it. Guys, I think he ate it. I think we got a musky on Two shiners, two suckers Got him. He thinks he's got a lot of bite to him. Whoa, whoa I think he ate it. Guys, I think he ate it. I think he got a musky I'm gonna hit him Got him Got him Got him guys. Got a musky Got him. Yeah, it was a musky I think there's one there. Yep, there's one there