 What is up guys Joe Holland here? I am on the road I'm actually on the statewide famous Golden Road coming out of Milanock in Maine heading on another ice fishing camping trip To the famous Chamberlain Lake and Chamberlain Lake chain on the Allagash waterway We got a little bit of a sloppy situation here driving up this morning It's been a couple two or three hours the roads are slick as a bottle and We've had rain all morning in 19 to 20 degrees which doesn't really make a lot of sense But that's the way it's coming and it's just turning the snow now Which I'm kind of welcome in that because she is pretty sloppy. It was ice on top of ice for quite a while I Got about an hour to go if things go well and the traveling is good. I'm just kind of putting along I'm running a little bit later than I'd like to but hopefully I'll be able to get in there and get set up before too late Tonight the boys are already in there. I am meeting up with Brandon and Cameron tonight Maybe Kyle too. I'm not sure who else is in there already You might remember those guys from my West Grand Series. These guys are just a great group of die-hards That go hard at their fishing really really love ice fishing and they've spent a decent amount of time up here So we're gonna hook up for this trip and we'll probably fish together a bunch and maybe eat some meals together and should have a good time I will be tenting either on the ice or near the ice this chain of lakes is always subject to flooding and Flood with slush which can be just brutal. So I might be just off the edge of the lake I might be in the woods. We'll see once I get up here This week is looking like we got some brutal cold coming in Tomorrow, let me think tomorrow or the next day I guess it's supposed to be a high of negative 10 with a low of 20 below And that's what they're reading for the milanocket to Ashland area And it's usually about 10 degrees colder than that once you get inside here and on the water We're gonna have some pretty pretty cold days pretty cold nights this week doesn't look like a lot of wind So it shouldn't be too bad one thing. I'm really excited about you might have seen in my previous video is I'm bringing up the New snowmobile. It's got less than a hundred yards on it for mileage We're gonna have to break it in this trip and I'm super super excited to have that beast up here the goal for today is to get in there find the boys get set up and Get ready for a big day of fishing tomorrow and a big day of fishing for the rest of the week Timeline for this trip. I don't know. I might stay Four days. I might stay a week. I might stay ten days I really don't have a schedule on this one a lot of times weather is my dicting factor of what drives me away or not Other than just cold winter weather. It doesn't look like a lot coming couple snow days But nothing crazy, but as we all know these mountains up here. They do make their own weather So who knows what's gonna happen once you get up here? Man these roads are Greasy, I'm gonna take it down a gear just to make sure I get up there I'd rather show up a half hour an hour later than I was planning on and get there safe than spend the night In a ditch. I've actually done that up here when I used to trap We had a you know a couple inches of snow on the ground enough on the sides of the road that it rain that it froze hard man, it was like Worse than a bottle. It was like a skate rink and I slid right through and truck pretty much laid on its side And I hadn't spent the night in the truck on its side Which I don't really like doing that too much So I'm gonna slow her down a year and try to make it in there safe almost six hours That was a lot of driving. I think I got all the blood squeezed out of that steering wheel I white-knuckled it for quite a bit of that trip. It was pretty ugly out there for quite a while and Lookie here. There's the boys. Oh, oh, man Look at this outfit Look at this outfit What's up, what's going on? How's it going? Okay guys, I am loaded up for the first load I think Brandon's gonna bring over his jet sled and just take my second load out for me follow me out I got my otter sled full of my gear the back one's another Otter cabin pro XT fishing shack and I threw a couple things in that sleds loaded up Got some goodies in the box That's pretty well freighted with sleeping stuff camping stuff. This has got some fishing stuff and the sled I'm gonna wear that stuff out and here's my second load right here that we're gonna load up and Brandon's They were threatening me with a hot cup of coffee. So I think I'm gonna have to Go for that threat see what's going on over here at the shack and don't want to waste too much time Because it's gonna be pretty cold tonight. The wind's actually howling pretty good surprisingly But holy cow look at all the brand new expeditions SWT Ellie Ellie Holy cow Oh Now you're talking my language Who got that deer? I'll be all right there Joe nice. Oh, yeah, that's the good stuff. Oh Try a piece of that All right, we are loaded up I got I got my tandem going right here Brandon's got a Otter sled over there with my floor and a couple other things in it We're gonna run down Lake and get me set up tonight They're gonna he's gonna drop off all my stuff with me and then they're gonna take a ride to Allagash Lake I guess and I'm gonna set up and then we'll meet back for dinner All right got it all out here one trip. Thanks guys really appreciate it this this rig of Brandon's with the high sides There's got like 12 inch sides built on it is the that's the cat's meow, isn't it? She works good. Yeah That's sled smells new Joe Yeah, I gotta burn the paper off of that Those are the dollar bills burning off it. Oh, yeah, she'll get broken this week. Yeah, so Cameron Cameron broke. I don't yeah, you gotta like yank it out. Yes. Really pull on. Yeah, she's new I don't know where it sets Cameron's is brand new to right how many miles on yours bud Let's see Joe. Oh 75 nice. All right All right, so suppose that's normal, right? Oh, yeah, yeah 536 clock chili dogs in the parking lot sure pop out easy. Oh cool. How'd you do that? These tabs here. They have it so you can hold it just like that. That's awesome 330 now Joe that'll give you a couple hours to I just need an hour I'll probably get set up and get all ready for for bed and then come out. That's what I figured. Yeah awesome All right, there they go. I'm in here guys. It's pretty windy. It's a little chillier and windier than I expected Tomorrow we got 35 mile an hour gusts and right around zero-degree temperature coming south southwest. So this It sounds right that way So it should come that way through through the woods So if I move a little closer to the woods, I'll be protected I'm not setting up on the ice because it is just a slush pit out there. I can't even get over how slushy it is So no setting up on the ice this year I'll be off the off the ice and set up on shore somewhere nice So I'm gonna get set up. It was crazy slushy coming across that lake if I had my old sled I'd be out there digging it out and it'd be buried right now, but it's amazing with a new one I mean, I wish you guys could have seen the smile on my face when I hit that slush and started to sink And I just punched it and she just lifted up and went it was crazy awesome But time to set up. I got more gear I think that I've ever brought on a trip just because I'm not too many miles from the truck and figured I Might be here a while and we're fishing lake trout with fishing white fish and we're fishing brook trout I'm videoing. I'm camping Yeah, so a lot of gear This is not a minimalist trip if you guys are looking for a minimalist trip stay tuned I might shoot one of those at some time, but it's tough to be super comfortable in these conditions We're gonna have negative 28 in two days So that's not a time to be messing around trying to be a minimalist Let's get set up Okay got a slight Got a slight over dig in this area. The thing I got to do is I just got to get around these rocks They're sticking up so that way the floor is nice and flat I could throw some snow back on to kind of make a padded level pad there I'm gonna build a snow wall over here to help block some of that wind and There is ice underfoot if the lake was this level not too long ago when it froze it's dropped now and It comes up and down so there is ice where I could at least get a screw somewhat into this and then I might have to lay some logs down to hold it down in that 30 mile an hour wind Okay, that's probably the longest it's taken me to lay the floor yet because there's a lot of rocks here Like I said, I'd love to be able to set up on the flat ice But I can't because the slush could come up five or six inches overnight and that would be terrible That would be Dangerous very dangerous to so I dug this whole area out couldn't get it to lay flat I even leveled it with snow, but there was just too many rocks So I boarded that plan came over here and dug this area out and I got it to lay Fairly flat. So now it's time to set up the tent before it gets dark We are on the clock right now fellas. That could be an issue. I'm not getting all these to go down because of the rocks so I might have to Get some logs or something to lay down on top of this because we got some serious winds coming I guess Everything's fighting me right now. Nothing's going together. Well, so situation like that Anger is your enemy You got to just slow things down a little take your time and get everything under control So we got the hot off. We got the floor down beds made now. We got everything under control. We're gonna take a breath I'm starting to sweat and that's not a good thing out here either. So and it's getting dark. So what I'm gonna do is finish setting up in here and Get camp Made and ready to go Okay, I'm set up. I got the shell up the floor down Everything in here is pretty well set up and now it's time to unpack and then I'm gonna run out and eat some dinner with Brandon and the boys. I Got a mess in here now, but everything's in We're out of the wind And now it's just a matter of unpacking got a new addition my buddy built for me That is a boot dryer that fits underneath the buddy heater and then a little tabletop up here And then a couple rails to put some traps and dry out the reels at night. It's a little big We might have to downsize it a little bit so it fits in here a little bit better space is definitely an issue Hey, yeah, how was it? Make it in. Yeah, we'll now gas link back nice Good ride Your lights are on Yeah That guy last night couldn't have a ball in the ass of the banjo Yeah, he was Quite a character. That's what we got going on out here for me There's an aeration going Mike set up got some cat ice on there. Yeah That was Mike's bait pail from today, but what's a nice melt in there? Oh, man These are we got beautiful smell come from different bait. We brought it up. Well, that's a good smell Well, yeah There's a five pounder right now licking his chops over these things Yeah Beauties. Yeah, we ain't lost three or four pieces. This one a lot of them Oh, you're smelting there, too. Oh, that's what we brought 15 dozen Wow Then what are you guys running for a system here? It's Mike bought that off Amazon, but we just a little one in Verda Oh, it's got it's got a six hose manifold on it and all of my tanks off it and pretty awesome Do you think the lettering Joe? I love it Yeah, I love it. This is awesome. It's quite a Impressive shack. Oh, yeah, I mean it sleeps for pretty comfortably We stayed 13 nights in the shack up here last year. You know what I mean? And there was never a cold night Yeah And it's not in there but outside was brutal. Yeah, absolutely, you know, we a lot of blows there tonight. Yeah Yeah, it's awesome. I love it Beautiful live for it. We got a whole week Joe to show them how it's done. I know it We'll get it done fellas I have a lot of high hopes every time I fish with these guys not only have we caught a lot of fish But we've caught some pretty good fish and if nothing else, you know You ain't gonna get cheated as a viewer because we're gonna go We are gonna go ahead at them. We know that Yeah, a few people at home. We're gonna say Tuesday morning. These guys are crazy. We are pretty crazy Yeah, and and we'll show you a lineup of some nice new sleds to tomorrow. Yeah When we get some daylight Ellis Brooke in the morning Ellis Brooke, okay So we're heading to Ellis Brooke off of Chamberlain Lake Southwest heavy wind. I think we'll be semi-protected if we're not gonna continue on we're gonna find a place out of the wind We can't fish 35. It's gonna be yeah No, it's a miles an hour Miles an hour. That's that's a ripping wind especially at zero Nothing you want to stand out in no especially at zero, but We might yeah, this chili we might want to eat some of that tomorrow, too So guys we are back at it You might recognize a couple of these guys from last year's West Grand Slam and even Brandon from catching a giant brookie up here Last year. Yeah. Oh, that's a huge brookie I can't even tell you how happy I am They got a beautiful set up here. We'll look at it a little bit better when we got some more light What do you guys think? I'm hoping for the best tomorrow I don't know But I think we're going we're gonna catch some fish tomorrow. I feel good about it. I get a good feeling We got an eight eight and nine mile ride I feel good about it. Yeah, what are you thinking brookies tomorrow? There's a shelf that we they cost a nice lake is last time. I think we'll see both tomorrow Yeah, you want to set for both or that's what we're gonna try Alice Brooke comes off like so long ways like this. There's not a lot of water It's just mud flat bottom and then it will roll off you get out that quite a ways You'll get out into like 10 20 you have to go a long ways get 25 They won't be Cameron Yeah, I mean a little ways. Yeah, and then the next day. What are we looking at for weather the next day? Bummy, we're gonna settle in find a good jig hole and hope for the best that day Joe What days are supposed to blow to Win tomorrow 35 Okay, are we gonna be any protection or we gonna be right into it real feel in the morning negative 16 And then we're gonna drop down into a real feel of 29 below So it's gonna feel like Florida. Yeah What's the plan for the week who's who's coming in who's you got camera and I and Mike first of the week here and then Wednesday Mike's gonna leave us and then one actually calling gonna join us I'm gonna join us and we'll have a group of four again to go at it again You want to introduce the bar to the YouTube world? Yeah, sure My buddy Mike we've fished together off and on for 20 years. You know what I mean started at West Grand Had a lot of fun together and he come up here with us last year showed us how to catch some brook trout I guess so we're gonna put any numbers on the board. That's why we brought him So these guys got up here. They were able to fish today, right? Yeah, today your first day. We're gonna hear about 10 o'clock last night. How'd it go today? We caught two decent mark got a nice brook trout 17 so I got a decent 17 or so another small 12. He I got nothing to talk about You don't mess around with the little ones though Cameron. We've seen you. We only go for the big one Yeah, we're just waiting for the end of the week. Yeah tomorrow Anything's possible. Yeah, what are we working off for dinner tonight fellas? Oh Oh jalapeno cheddar bratwurst. Oh, nice With the hot moves chili the hot moves chili. Yeah, it might be a better night than morning That's gonna work right there boys That are filled boy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah So who shot this moose? Me and my buddy Josh Zone one. Oh, yeah, we camped up We tinted in town alley gas right there Monday morning. We woke up It was 20 degrees She was cold Not an insulated no no no insulated. Oh, yeah, we stenton. Yeah Just sold Ozak trail tent brought the buddy. He did left that on but thank God What was it for moves What do you weigh seven 750 pounds 40 45 inch spread I think nice nice moves shot him open in Open in day in the evening. I I do like eating moose. I think more than anything. Oh, yeah, absolutely I gotta I brought a pile of moose burger. I yeah, I love not only is it good in stuff, but it'll stand on its own Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's all we've eaten. Yeah So we tacos moose burger. Yeah Nice All right Made it back Made it back to the shack That's a good feeling there was a pile of slush a ton of slush out there. I Hum just besides myself. I cannot even believe how awesome that new snowmobile is. That's the smartest thing I ever did You know coming out here and doing the type of stuff I'm doing was to buy that snowmobile because I hit like probably a Miles worth of slush out there You know five six inches of snow on top of six inches of slush on top of the ice and there's no way There's no way at all my other snowmobile would have made it through it I'd be sitting out there, you know at night digging trying to dig out a snowmobile with another mile ahead of me of slush and Today pulling those two sleds out. It was Really heavy a lot of weight full of gear hold my gear and I hit that same slush pocket and Just hit the throttle and she just floated a little bit and kind of slid and just Right through it. So I am pretty stoked about that snowmobile guys. It's I'll talk more about it. I'm sure a lot over the course of this trip, but Already it's it's already worth it just after the after that Getting through all that slush and conditions We're we're in for some super cold some serious cold weather coming and There's a lot of slush on the ice so it's gonna be pretty messy right now. We're looking at like Mid-20s it's starting to snow. It's about 7 30 at night. I'm gonna tidy up camp a little bit more kind of Unpack everything just right brush the old chompers and probably do a little bit of reading Because there's there's no service up here. We're so far from town. There's no service for my iPad or anything So I can't return comments or follow Follow anything on YouTube while I'm up here on this trip So it'll be going old school reading some books and I'll I don't even know what I threw in there for books I threw a couple good ones in there. I hope I'm gonna hit breakfast here in the morning I have a problem the eggs fell out of my tote when I was unloading the truck So I know I'll crack quite a few of them. We'll see I brought two dozen. I don't think I have two dozen right now and there's not many chickens running around So I got to make do with what I have but I got taters some toast and some eggs And I chopped up a bunch of onions and peppers before I left home and got those in bags, too So I'll probably do a pretty good size breakfast here in the morning Definitely do coffee here before I go on any trip Especially to a new body of water that I don't fish a lot and even the ones that I do fish a lot The laws change so frequently in Maine as the biologists try to manage each fishery So before I left I printed up the all the laws and the special laws on Everybody of water connected to this to Chamberlain and to other bodies of water nearby with all the limits The sizes when you could fish it what you could use for bait And you know if you guys live out of state you can kind of see they're pretty extensive the laws and they can Get confusing so what I've learned is I just copy and paste it and and put it in a file and just print them for every every lake So I got several lakes here. I have One two three four five different lakes printed out on this and what the game laws off or for each of them So that way I am fishing within the laws and that's a good Responsible thing that every angler should do if you're gonna plan a trip to any lake and then you know in case We get slushed out or blown off these lakes That's why I have the other area lakes in case we got to go to a smaller lake or try somewhere else on the same note I printed up another fishing license copy. I got my snowmobile registration I got my trailer registration in a plastic bag and that'll stay either in my bibs or It'll stay on the snow will be on this trip It'll probably just stay in that big box in the snow will be ill and if a if a warden checks us Or any law enforcement officer I'll have all my paperwork ready to go and dry in that bag. All right guys. Let's take a look at camp We got a couple new additions and a couple new tweaks to camp for this one. I knew it was gonna be colder. So I Ended up bringing some more propane. It's in the truck Which is only four miles away, which is pretty nice So I could always run out and get resupplied bring the old can out and empty can out new can in or as I get Close I can just bring another one in which is nice new stuff so far I'm trying out one of these blower fans right here. That's a heat activated blower fan As you can see it's ripping pretty good, and I just got it. I just have it set on the big buddy heater right there It's not even attached to it yet. I'll attach it if I like it I want to see if it just pushes the the warm air around that's one thing that the big buddy heaters without the fans Lacks is moving the water moving the water moving the hot air around it doesn't move the hot air around as well So the area right in front of it's usually really hot without a fan So I have hung a fan from the ceiling as well. I broke the clip that hangs it That's why I don't have it on this camping trip the Coleman. I'm getting it dialed in pretty good I haven't done the tweaks to it that some of the viewers had mentioned to get those dials Adjusted just right, but it's so it burns so hot compared to my other one that I can't even grab my Coffee pot anymore, so I put a wooden handle on my coffee pot That'll be tomorrow be the first go with that thing to see if that works and holds up I just formed it around the metal handle and threw a couple dials in glued them So we'll see if the glue holds after heat that up and perking some coffee But I got another Milwaukee light up here that that I could bring with me or throw in the back And that snow will be all pretty well this great big thing in here That is my new boot drying rack so that the buddy heater will fit right underneath those boots and each night I can swap out if I'm using rubber or leather boots and dry them there now It does have a spot in the back to hang other boots, but it's kind of hard to get to I'm actually gonna cut that back part out So this can actually fit against that wall a little bit better But on the top here is like a catch-all where I can throw some batteries and some battery chargers and stuff and I Got my olive oil and some honey up there, too But that's about it for new stuff I've only forgotten one thing for this trip that I can think of now is a porcelain coffee mug Which I really like to have one drinking coffee. I don't know why even even when I'm camping I do like it a little bit better, but I forgot that so I do have a metal one like a Yeti That I can drink out of too, but I'll check the truck and see if I don't have one kicking around in there Every once in a while I do have one in there I'm thinking maybe there's one on the passenger seat So I'll check tomorrow when I go out and see the boys, but that's the new stuff right now It's snowing out there. It's mid 20s still and it's just kind of spitting snow I don't think it's gonna accumulate too much more than an inch so doesn't seem like it's gonna be much But camps looking pretty cozy couple things that That make it really nice is you know with the wood floor I brought a broom which just sounds like something you'd never even ever think about bringing price fishing It sweeps all the snow out and if the snow turns to stand in water with the buddy buddy heater Then I could sweep that out as well So once you get that water out of here and the snow out then everything can stay pretty dry But once you get the water and the snow the snow melting in here then the condensation builds up pretty good So brooms always pretty handy the boot hangers gonna be the boot dryers gonna be really handy and then hangers You know like I don't think you should put a ton of stuff hanging off the the ceiling You know because you end up just pulling those down to close it anyway But it is nice hanging some jackets up and some shirts up on those so hangers are pretty good Yeah, that's about it over here I have I have a tote with some paper towels and this is all food over here There's cans in the bottom this tote right here has various camping stuff and batteries Over here. I'm gonna have the lights. You know that one tower does a really good job In the corner. There's my bag of clothing and some warm warm weather clothes I'm all set up here with just the sleeping bag I might bring a blanket in tomorrow night Just because if we're looking at negative 20 or negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit without the wind It wouldn't hurt to have an extra blanket Got my chair here got some electronics behind me stored and then over here is my Refrigerator, there's a section that the floor didn't quite cover So it goes right down to the ice and snow and I throw the food over there that I like to keep cold And if I need to thought out I just bring it over here if it'll fall But that's about it camp super cozy the floor is the deal for me having that one floor there was It took a lot of time today to set it up probably longest I've ever taken because I had to get off the lake because there's so much slush out there And there's more slush coming all the time I don't know why if you guys know why it's making so much slush leave it in the comments So I got I'm about probably a foot higher than the lake and There's rocks here So I'm actually on the shoreline But there's ice over it where the either the snow had melted or where the lake froze and then it Kept lower and that foot so there is some ice here I got the cleats and the spikes to go into some of them But not all of them, which is why I banked it a lot. I bent my shovel I think shoveling into too many rocks and the snow is really heavy So I think I was gonna build like a really nice wall on this side with that 35 mile an hour wind coming To block some of that wind but with my shovel bent. We'll see we'll see how early I get up in the morning, too