 What is up guys? Joe Holland here. Thank you for coming along on another one of these adventures. This time we are heading up into the north main woods to a remote wilderness lake to try to catch the elusive muskie. I am super jacked up to catch a muskie again. Last year was the first time I ever caught one ice fishing. Little bit different circumstances last year. Last year I went to a place where there aren't as many but a tank bruiser. This time I'm going to a place where supposedly there's a little bit more but they don't get very big. It should be good fishing regardless of size but it would be kind of cool to get another double digit one put another DD on the ice. That's my biggest muskie I've ever caught. Roads are pretty clear so it's hammer down time. I got about two and a half hours behind me. I got about three to three and a half hours in front of me so I can't dilly dally. I'd like to stop at every bait shop and be a bait shop bum but I gotta get moving because I don't have a lot of time from when my estimated time of arrival is to till darkness sets in and I want to get camp set up because it's the only place I have to sleep tonight. Had to wait this morning till about eight a.m. before I could leave my town. I had to go and register the new snowmobile and I had to go and register my truck while I was there. I lost a little bit of weight this morning in there and finally got on the road. Two and a half hours behind me already made one quick stop at a bait shop to see if I could buy some hooks that I'm looking for. They didn't have the hooks I was looking for so I ended up buying a .22 target and a little tiny like sunflower heater for the buddy heater to have in my mobile shack and to use as a backup in case I need a little heat source either in the trailer or in the shack where I'm sleeping if the big buddy heater ever fails. This one's only a 3,800 BTU heater but it'll probably do the trick in a small area. Temps and weather for this week right now we are in the single digits we're at seven degrees Fahrenheit above zero and we're looking at some pretty cold temps for this week. I think the next two days are supposed to be like highs of like nine or ten with lows in the negatives at night and then the third day it's going to be negative 18 they're calling for at night with a negative as a high for the day so as always the case as soon as you get past those mountains the weather is always a little bit colder than they predict so I'm expecting another negative 20 degree night these mountains up here they make their own weather doesn't look like we have too much wind and this lake I'm fishing is pretty small so I'm not too worried about the wind I've never been here before so it's all up in the air it's like man it's just such a great feeling when you're heading to one of these trips especially if it's if it's new and new to you it's just so much anticipation so much excitement so much anticipation it's really hard to keep my foot from going too hard down to the floor give you a little trip update I have been off the tar road now for about an hour I have another 55 miles to go GPS is saying it's going to be a little bit over two hours to do those 50 something miles which probably right I'm hovering right around 30 miles right now 30 miles per hour right now but there's a lot of slow down areas with sharp turns and hills pretty rough going the roads are pretty rough I don't know if you can hear this rattling over here even peeps teeth are chatter hot holes and ruts looking pretty good I stopped in it the last trading post and it was funnier than heck the guy working there Jamie real good guy says oh geez he goes it's Joe Holland he goes great now we can expect some terrible weather if he's in the area oh man that cracked me up because he's been watching the youtube and it seems to be wherever I go I bring some pretty nasty weather with me I got a pretty good kick out of that so Jamie if you're watching thanks for the laugh today but hope I don't bring too bad a weather in six and hours and 20 minutes from when I left home I've never been here before the road in isn't plowed so I'm gonna have to take the snowmobile in first and find out how it looks if it's safe and pick an area to get set up in come back out get the gear but first things first I gotta put some clothes on I got my I got my driving clothes on and that ain't gonna cut it because it's five degrees out here and there's a little bit of wind okay I found the way in I found the way not to go into I almost got her stuck I got her half stuck about five times and some really thick drifts that blew off the lake if that was my old sled I'd be digging and digging and digging and she'd be buried right in there with no hope but this thing I just jumped on one side pretty hard and got her to level out push her down and get fed of the corn and she popped right out of a pretty amazing tool right there man is that thing worth every single penny I put into it already all right anyway so got out to the lake now what I'm gonna do is take a load out stop at the edge of the lake walk out do an ice test and drill and see how much ice we got it's not too far in there it's a couple miles so I'm not going to take a crazy load in I'm I could fit everything in one trip but there's no sense I'm gonna I'll do two trips new addition I built a Brandon box for the top of my auto that should be good I forgot something and it was right there I forgot my Milwaukee drill which is kind of dumb but lucky for me I got my strike master to drill holes it just won't be able to drill my tent stakes in or I was going to use it to go do some test holes and some other things around camp but forgot it it was on my list and right next to the batteries it must be sitting on my work bench happen sometimes so I'll take this first load out there and pick a spot and start to get set up okay I am out here with the first load I drilled a pilot hole when I first go in the lake I hit some slush over there where I came on and I drilled to like 14 inches and just stopped drilling I didn't go all the way through I came I went down like crossed where it was narrower came up here and dug down didn't get any slush digging down so that's good so I could put the tent probably down to the ice over here and then I drilled a pilot hole there I went down another 14 15 inches and didn't hit water yet so I didn't bother drilling through I don't need to bring any slush up if it wants to slush up so I think I'm going to unload right here go back out and get the rest of the load with the floor and then set up for the night I'm on the clock I got about an hour you can see the sun's getting a little bit low over there so I got probably an hour I'm feeling pretty confident about the time the more I do this the quicker I am at setting up so I'm not very worried about that as long as I keep moving and doing things the right way so I'm gonna unload here I'm not gonna dig down till I get the floor and then I'll get the floor and dig down okay we are unloaded that was pretty good load right there actually that's the first load I brought some more toys this trip I don't know have a little bit more fun I guess if there's such a thing there's quite a bit more snow here than I was expecting there's at least 12 to 15 inches everywhere and then there's some big high drifts that's not good looks like that chainsaw leaked on my tent yeah yeah hopefully it didn't go through the the tent case it looks like it probably did oh well we'll figure it out when we get there okay off to get the second load let's go all right the floor should ride pretty smooth pretty good just leaning up against the outsides like that then all this room in the middle for more gear so I think I'm gonna leave the bait hooked right up into the truck right here it's plugged into a 12 volt and just I'll just run out in the morning and then grab what I need aha I just I just spotted my clam bibs they're in that otter man I tore up the whole the whole house looking for those things the last time I saw them was in mill and I stopped to see my buddy Ozzie and when I did I changed out of those so I didn't track all that stuff into his house and I've been looking everywhere for him and I guess I put him in this otter thing that I still haven't opened yet this year so I just found them that's good there should be a handful of gopro batteries in the pocket that's what I was more worried about still plenty of room to throw some more stuff in and my box up here has got room in it too I'm gonna try something different this trip something I've never done is set the floor up on top of the snow so I just drove around about eight or ten times and really tried to pack it down it's still a little fluffy I don't know I don't know if I'll be able to get that to sit flat but it's worth a try and then I could just throw the kickers down into the ice and I won't screw the corners of the shack down let's see if let's see if the floor will lay down I think it's gonna work I probably shouldn't walk where I'm throwing the next one but that's all right let's try it to walk anywhere but right here so that'll be the part that really squishes down bed looks like it'll be flat let's set up the tent I think it's gonna work I could maybe still screw those down in the corners actually I think I can I don't want to go I don't want to put it super tight down because I'm like sitting on like eight inches of snow and I would lose eight inches of head room if my floor is eight inches up from where the tent's sitting so I think I'll still screw it down and just kind of put those at an angle guys you gotta you gotta get these anchored somehow even if it's just a spew because all it takes is a breath of wind and these things just kite right up I've seen it wow these are all in rough shape I didn't realize that they're in really rough shape all the tips are pretty blunt from that last trip when I was driving them into the rocks all right so I still have about four inches more I could go but I'm a good four inches in there so that'll keep that from blowing away see if I can find another semi-sharp one we'll get it so it's not looking good for getting these in by hand oh man they're pretty dull and they some of them bent over from that last trip where I was driving them into the rocks so I gotta bring these home and sharpen them let me see if there's I got two in that might go in that won't that won't nope nothing to catch all right no worries I'm gonna I'll throw snow around all the edges and worse comes to worse I could go cut a couple logs and tie my ropes down to those as downriggers when there's a well there's always a way just doing this will help the window tremendously I'm getting underneath last trip I could just about barely get my tent back because I threw so much snow on minute pros I still gotta be careful not to sweat I'm running out of time to get set up before dark but I'm ahead of it now so I got the floor in the tent that's the key the rest of it's just kind of house cleaning at this point sun's getting pretty low but we still do have some daylight left I'm not too worried about setting up in dark now that I have those great lights too but this is what you're gonna look like I'm gonna bring the snowmobile around so everything's closer and I'm not working up a sweat walking it in and out of that door from 20 feet away rather than just a couple feet away there's a difference between lazy and smart cots down now for the bed oh no the eggs again oh man the bag let's see let's see did we lose any yeah we lost one dang it shoot the other ones we might have broken yokes but that's all right let that freeze and then I'll clean it up so close so close freaking hand-offed brothers hand-offed brothers in your bags ain't worth a dime all right that's everything out of this sled the rest of that stuff's just various fishing stuff that can or can come in okay that's everything got the heater going sun's down so I don't know if it's worth it to try to run three or four miles back out and get set up for a hole I think I'm probably better off getting everything stowed away in here I get a little bit more work to do than normal because I forgot my drill but let's take a look at camp that's what she's looking like bed got my sleeping bag pillow and cot and a cot pad right there some various food got my heater going got the light got my boot holder which I cut down a little bit so it can fit right tight against the wall table here two totes with various camping stuff and food got 11 of the 12 eggs made it out which is good got my cook stove right there the waters were already starting to freeze up so I'm going to put those right in front of the heater and here I have a gun under that that little yellow bag there's all my video stuff and the big yellow bag underneath there is my clothes got my trusty chair some jacket sweaters a couple electronics there and just fishing stuff there so that's the setup for camp it went really quickly I'm I'm kind of curious to see how it's going to go being seven inches up off the ice I thought about it last second I hit some more slush coming on over there and I was like it just not worth it to wake up in the morning with four or five inches of slush there and I'm glad I did because I didn't have all my drill bits anyway I didn't have all my my screw anchors are all dull and bent I got to put those on the grinder and get them sharp again so they can dig in going into the ground last trip I didn't even think about it but hitting rocks and stuff definitely put a hurt on the tips but out here pack basket with the traps pretty well ready to go I'm going to go over those tonight I think I might have a little bit too big of hooks on there for what I think's in here I got my auger here I'll bring that battery in keep it warm at night just in case got a little target there got a video camera another axe that's my catch bag I'll probably bring that in because it's got a scale in it I brought the chainsaw this trip just to have I was going to see if I could cut a sight hole for you guys and really try something cool on musky but I don't know there might be too many inches of ice I'm not sure exactly how many inches we have I've test holes were like 12 to 14 pretty easy and I didn't go all the way through a shovel over here I changed out the handle on it to a wooden handle actually no I took a different shovel and I took this off of the one that had the bend so I got the handle on that so that other one doesn't have a handle and it's got a bent shaft now sun's down over there it's pretty cold out it was five when I left the truck and it's definitely getting colder got a slight breeze coming from this direction so I'm still debating maybe while I still have some daylight I'll see if I can find a log down or a leaner looks like there might be a leaner up there where I can go cut some logs and have some weight to to bring these tie downs to so they don't blow in all right trying to get this buddy heater going I don't know what what's wrong with it maybe it's clogged I ran it inside my buddy's barn on high for she's probably like a third of a tank and just let her let her fly wide open till she ran out and I got three tanks in here I got two and a half tanks full full tanks in here two full tanks and a half tank and the two full tanks for some reason what they didn't want to run with the two full tanks I just switched over to the half tank and seems to be going pretty good right now but it was blowing the pilot hard like wicked fast wicked high flame up for a pilot and then hardly anything when I put it on one two or three might be a regulator issue when I took it off and switched tanks I tried opening the valve and it went wide open without anything connected to it and I think the valve was stuck open on high because it was so cold looks looks like it's running now we'll see if it stays running kind of glad I picked up that backup now and I think it's going to drop a little bit more in a minute she's dropping pretty quick she's dropping pretty quick tonight I think we're gonna have a pretty pretty good low tonight temp is dropping like a rock pretty cold out there got the buddy heater running pretty good right now got the new one running just to try it out over here seems to be doing pretty good all in all I think I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in got the shackle set up floor set up on top of the snow we'll see how that goes I don't know if it's going to be any warmer or any colder I don't think it'll be much different if anything maybe it'll let the wind sneak in underneath the door I threw enough snow around the edges but I got everything set up bed set up probably going to have have something real good tonight if if I can get them a thaw I can't believe they already froze just from being in the truck I guess and then the ride out but those are cask nuggets from last trip I've been eating them all all week while I was editing videos and I still had something left so I brought them out just to show you guys how much I enjoy eating them because I really do enjoy eating them so I'm gonna set them right here over over the buddy heater and let them cook on low till they thaw out enough so I can put them on the fry pan and then tonight I stopped by my buddies where my buddy works at a slaughter shop but I didn't want to bug him while he was working but to support a local business I picked up a nice chunk of steak right there so that's a what are we looking at here main grown rib eye main grown rib eye should be pretty good so I'll drive that into me with some potatoes and maybe eat some cheese and pepperoni as Steven would say ahead of time so be big dinner tonight because I didn't really eat much today traveling didn't eat anything I guess I had a little bit this morning I was so excited to get up here I hit the road kind of takes a lot out of you I'm actually pretty tired right now you know six hours in a truck six and a half hours in a truck and not really eating or drinking too well pounded a couple cups of coffee into me that was about it so I haven't seen anybody up here which is always nice it's crazy still right now that's why the temp's dropping right now we're at negative 24 and a half right now it's crystal clear sky you can see every single star out there I'll bring you out there in a little bit and hopefully we'll see hopefully you guys will be able to see but it's really hard to pick it up on the go pro but just how pretty those stars are at night up here in the north main woods where the nearest foreign light sources probably probably a hundred miles away here where I am we're close to it pretty excited about the fish in tomorrow let me see where did I put my paperwork I got paperwork here somewhere I got this paperwork with all my notes but I also have a map of this lake and this is a pretty unique lake because let's see before the 30s it was like 650 square foot I think and then in the 30s great northern paper built first they dug a canal so it could reach the Penobscot so they could float logs down to mill and auka it was like a two-mile canal and then they dammed the canal so that way they could build up the water high enough to get the float going and the flow going with all the logs in it so that brought it from like 650 680 square acres to 1280 or almost 1300 acres so it like doubled the size of this lake it's not a big lake it's small it's like two and a half miles long by about a half mile wide they stopped using it you know when they stopped doing log drives and the dam just kind of went to disrepair and went away and when that went away it went back to its original shape and size which is back down to like 650 acres so it's not a great big pond it's going to be fun to fish I I've never been here before I've got I've had two friends who fished here one in open water and he was telling me about the weed lines and then another friend of mine she came up and ice fished I think last year the year before and she did really well up here so there are musky in here I have not heard of anything over double digits being caught I guess it's a lot of fish but not big ones which is perfectly fine we're gonna have fun catching musky and a lot of musky and I might have a few tricks on my sleeve too so it should be a fun trip but I don't know about the depth of the lake I've read one of my maps says it's 21 says this is only as deep as 14 so we with the pan optics we're going to be able to find that out we'll be able to find the deep holes the edges any underwater points and we'll spend a decent amount of time tomorrow looking around I'll probably set five traps right away get those in the water and then go out and do some exploring with the pan optics and just do a bunch of pilot holes where I drill point it point it down and look ahead you know 150 feet or 200 feet in all directions to see what the depths are if there's any changes or how deep it really is pretty excited to fish really excited to catch a musky it's just such a special fish and we don't have many bodies of water in Maine that have them I have to thank my Canadian brother and thank you Canada for stocking them up on the St. John or St. Croix River that also flows in the Maine so that's the only reason we have them is they stocked them in the 1970s their fishing game is wise enough to put them in to great fish phenomenal fish so such a beautiful fish that is apparently it's really good eating too which we might try this trip there's no limit on them it's pretty weird in Maine no limit on musky at all I really like fishing these ponds or lakes that I've never been on it's just so exciting and you know it adds to the anticipation of if you're going to catch one what's in here I heard there's also yellow perch in here which I've never heard any yellow perch this far north in Maine so that'll be interesting if they're in here and it'll be fun to catch those I'm guessing that's your primary forage so a lot of the jig baits I brought up are are in that yellow perch family I brought up sea smelts right out of the ocean for bait so those could be a wicked treat for these fish that could be something really nice for them they're in the truck right now because I could plug that right in the 12 volt and it won't run the battery too hard on the truck I've done it like three or four nights at at home different nights and truck starts just fine in the morning so what I'll do is all I left them in there because it'll be probably warmest in the truck it'll be like probably 10 degrees colder warmer in the truck than it is outside the aerators running off the truck and then I'll probably go pick those up first thing in the morning bring them in so I can fish with them and then I have two aerators built into that fray bill it'll run 24 hours or more each to keep them alive I'm guessing I might be able to do four days on this trip I heard the latest snow report before I came in was two to four foot so four foot would be an issue getting out of here I would definitely need a plow truck to come in and I don't know exactly where they're cutting they're where the nearest cutting is so kind of hard to space the whole trip on just guessing where they're going to be cutting this road out here isn't like a major road so I think I'm going to go for four days guys I think it's important to talk for a second about safety when you're up here and you're alone and you're very very far from the nearest person the nearest town or the nearest help a couple things to really think about you have to think everything through don't just react like you normally would if you're downstate all your knives make sure they're sharp a dull knife is a very unsafe knife because you end up putting more pressure on and you end up cutting differently than you normally would always cut away from you don't cut like towards your fingers towards your leg anything like that always know where your auger blades are be super careful with your auger blades make sure you don't hit a foot or fall into them or anything like that your axes knives scissors any blades that you bring up be super super careful because like I said you're a long way from from any town or hospital or a person for help so you cut yourself you're on your own fires another thing so be careful with your propane you know don't take any chances with that and any fire that you're running you know that that's another thing that could get you in trouble then the snowmobiles you know there's just so much power with those things when you get the further you get away from town the more careful you really need to be so please keep that in mind if you guys ever think about doing a solo trip like i'm doing i've done this a lot of time so a lot of this stuff has become second nature to me but there's always in my head those thoughts of okay what could go wrong what's the worst that could happen how do i avoid that happening how do i avoid something wrong happening you know what kind of dangers do i see every single day or what kind of dangers do i see you know every minute of every day and how do i avoid those dangers and make sure that those dangers don't come into play so those are things that i think of from doing this for many many years so if you're thinking about just getting into this you know i've always said try doing it at home first try it in your garage try it on your local pond first before you start going on some solo trips into the wilderness and very far from town and and doing it alone and away from people just practice it's just like any it's just like a sport you know you wouldn't expect to jump into a sport and be the best at it right away so why would you expect to do something like this and be great at it right away without a little practice and learning you know what you like or your comfort level or or what you might need so those are a couple tips for you if you're going to do this and i highly recommend it just just take the steps to get there and and always be as safe as you possibly can you really got to slow things down so you get more time to think between those things you know don't work up a sweat when it's this cold we're already over 20 below zero right now so you can't be out you can't be sweating because it's really hard to warm up after you're sweating all right we're going to put some Louisiana fish fry in there with that cask because i've fished down in Louisiana before and it is the dirtiest nastiest water i've ever seen in my life and they eat a lot of fish out of that water so if anybody's if anybody tells you they got a Louisiana mix for a recipe they do know how to make a fish taste good especially eating it out of that slop water no offense this is cask and cask will stand alone but i figured i'd bread it up and then these are cask nuggets these are these are about as good as you can get in the state of Maine i don't care what kind of fish you put up against it i don't believe it's going to beat it here's a little pro tip for you if you guys are camping like i am where you shut the heater off at night or even if you don't shut it off tonight on a night when it's in the negative 20s get your coffee pot ready to go for the morning mine's all ready to go so if that freezes tonight it's fine i just put it on and throw it out whereas if it freezes in a plastic container it's awful hard to pour it so you got to throw it out first and then pour it but that one i don't care if it freezes it's going on the heater tomorrow morning cask nuggets baby it doesn't get any better than that i don't know why i'm out here fishing for muskie and perch when i could be fishing for cask that's going to be a heck of a horse derver and then after i eat that i'm going to drive a big old steak into me how big is this steak anyway that thing is one pound so 16 ounce or we can drive a 16 ounce steak into me and cook that up with some onions and peppers and mushrooms maybe do a little bit of mashed haters on the side probably don't need them but when it's this cold a little bit extra won't hurt we'll throw a little garlic in the pan too before we get started i found some minced garlic in town you could probably call cask poor man's scallops now they are good oh man it's like better than lobster i'd eat a cask over a lobster any day of the week you guys ever notice how the ugliest things taste the best there's a plate of cask nuggets right there guys that's a uh that's a 12 piece for you i can't buy that in stores that louisiana bradden seasoning it's got a pretty good little taste to it but it kind of gives you that nice crisp outer coating on it man you throw that on there and the insides just white pure white sweet meat on the inside once you get through that outer crisp it just adds to the flavor wow yeah that's edible mm-hmm yep that's gonna hit the spot tonight i don't know if i'll be able to drive that whole thing into me but be able to drive quite a bit of it into me have staking eggs in morning if i don't it's good it's edible i'll tell you one thing right now i'd trade 20 of these things for one piece of moose meat it's hard to beat moose meat i am pretty partial of moose but this ain't bad but it ain't moose well that's gonna do it for tonight guys thanks for tuning in had a pretty sweet day being able to get all the way up here with no problems no problems with the trailer no problems with the truck no problems with the gear and got all set up so those are those are great days when you have a day like that i wish i would have got up here a little earlier and had some lines set but i had to get that registration taken care of for the snowmobile and for the truck and i had to wait till my town office opened you can register a snowmobile online anytime day or night but if it's a new snowmobile you have to do it at your town office i guess for the first time so something the state hasn't quite figured out yet got a couple gopro batteries charging that's about it pretty quiet i just went through all of my tackle over here in the pack basket over here went through all of my tackle went through all my traps changed the line on four of them i'm going to run two with wire leaders tomorrow 30 pound wire leaders and three with 30 pound fluorocarbon i'm running two odd and three odd octopus hooks and weights dependent on the depth that i fish mostly one eighth and the bait i'm using sea smells about yay big they're eaters so if i don't catch anything on them i can take them off the hook and eat them they're pretty good eating actually gear is all ready to go i love working on tackle before night you know before going to bed and going fishing the next day it's just a great feeling knowing that everything's ready to go and there aren't going to be any problems tomorrow always always enjoyed working on my tackle the day before yeah that's going to do it we're settled in at 19 below zero right now fair and height it's pretty chilly out there wasn't quite as clear as i expected it to be so i wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't warm up by morning and maybe get a little snow on the ground i'm going to get up regular time and run out and get some bait come back in and set some traps up and maybe have maybe do a couple things off the wall tomorrow we'll see beds ready to go i opened it up so it can start to get a little heat in there there's not much heat in here we're sitting at 31 degrees where well where the over the heaters 31 degrees so probably in this corner where all that snow is still on the ground it's in the negatives or close to zero thanks for tuning in for the first day of this series travel day travel days are always fun i'm going to do a little bit of reading and drink a little hot tea and hit the rack and get at it tomorrow and hopefully we have an awesome day the question is sometimes asked why a state like main so sparsely settled poor weak in all external aids can send forth such throngs of masterful men who east and west step to the front to lead direct and do we who were brought up among pine trees and granite know the secret of their success it comes not wholly by taking thought it is in the blood