 Good morning. 4.30. It's about 12 degrees out. I'm gonna get an early run at it because I'm gonna switch locations today and go try to catch some crappy and win this tournament. So load it up, gonna take a few supplies out, fill up some propane and a few other things this morning and then try to catch some crappy. Okay 14 and a half going back. Another 15-incher going back. Here are guys. I finally found the crappy. Long, long hard day. A lot of hard work. This is the fourth lake I've been on. I just lost three good ones in the hole but I caught five or six good ones too. I'm horsing them. You can't horse them like that. Especially around the hole. It's a good one here. He just touched it. He touched it. I think he'll bite again. Yeah, here he comes. Sometimes you can get him back if you hit the bottom. Yeah, yeah, here he comes. Hot. That time he ate. So we got another good one on. I'm not gonna horse this guy. We're gonna give him some drag, play him out. They just got shoulders on him in this lake. They're absolute tanks. I don't think I could use this one. No. That's a crappy fighting like that. I mean it's another giant crappy. Look at that. Got one the Castmaster Rattlemaster in Wonder Bread. Giant crappy. I'm using the savant rod. It's really, really nice. But I'll measure him up. Yeah, he goes 15 even. Can't use them. Actually I gotta find out what my smallest is. I'll find out what I need for sizes in this tournament. I got a 15, a 15 and a 14 and a half. Shoot, I could have used that last one. Dang it. Now I gotta catch another. They don't like a ton of movement, but if they see something fall and fall into the mud, they're coming over to investigate. I got a soft bottom here. It's like 10, 11 foot tops. We got a looker on the side. This could be another big one. Type my drag a little bit to make sure I get a good hook set. Yeah, that looks like a chunk coming in. We're gonna keep this elevated. Got two coming. They're pretty far now. One's eight foot away. They kind of went dead. So I'm gonna look around. I hate to move much because it's so loud right now. I see some at 70. There's a couple in the wheelhouse still. There's some behind us. Man. Maybe I'll just stay put. Hopefully they come in. There's no snow on the ice. The ice is thin. It's porous. So everything's super loud. I hate to even talk to you guys right now because I could see fish going away. But sometimes you gotta move to get a little closer to them. We're running out of daylight here and I got a long snowmobile ride back to camp. Yeah, let's move ahead. We're gonna make a short move. Just try to get on some new fish since we're running low on time. I hate to make the move as quiet as it is, but I think we kind of have to right now to catch one. Every once in a while you can scare them in. They're not far. We might get a chance at them. Like 40 feet ahead. Go see if I can scare them back this way. I might have been a bad move. Let me catch that, but got that on the rattle master. Another in that 50. Alright, so I got all 15s right now. I need some big ones. We're gonna be like 14 and a half. We can't use them, but look at how solid and big that fish is. Yep. Look at him back. We are smashing them. Smashing the big crappy. Last day of the tournaments tomorrow. I was in like last place before an hour ago. So stage in an epic comeback. The comeback of epic proportions. Bring you guys over here. I don't know if there's still fish here or not. Not a bad school to be on. All 15s are close to it. I want to drill another hole. So I don't have to take that life-scope to pull out, but I'm afraid to drill. I don't want to scare these fish away. I feel like I got away with one getting that one hole in. Looks like a bigger one down bottom. I'm gonna go for him. Big school 50 feet away. We might have to go get them. I'll take whatever I can get right now guys. I ain't proud. It's one on bottom. I can't tell the size of it. I'm in 12-foot of water. They're not active at all. You've got to get them right in the right in their face. I don't know if it's because it's dark. This guy's all over it. Doesn't look big. He feels like he might have some small shoulders. Oh jeez look at that. That's a giant pumpkin for Maine. He did have shoulders. Wow. That's a big one. Cool. I'll show you guys that. Good bite. Real nice bite. I don't know. Might be a perch. Little crappy. Little guy. Alright I'm in one's face right now. Little guy. Not the droid we're looking for. I'm gonna try to drop this before I let him go. We're gonna go back to the snowmobile. See if they calm down over there and we can catch a couple before we go. But we are super happy with what we have from what we started the day with. I'll be back for you guys. Can you guys see me? Yeah they're there. Alright guys that's gonna do it for the fish catching period of this video. It wasn't very long. I didn't really have a lot to film. It was an absolute struggle today. High winds and just bluebird sky and they weren't biting and there was people all over the spot I wanted to catch him at. So I had to improvise and came to a place I fished like 20 years ago. Everybody's been telling me it's dead and first drop 14 and 3 quarters. It was awesome. So I'm gonna get picked up. Gotta go load up the snowmobile in the trailer. Stop. Fuel up the truck. Fuel up the snowmobile and then I got a long ride into where I'm staying and stay tuned for that portion of the video. For the camping part of the video I kind of want to cook a really nice meal tonight in that oven but we'll see what time it is when I get back there. It's six o'clock right now. I won't be getting off the lake for another half hour probably. Alright made it back. That's quite a trail ride in. The bomb of a ride. Long ride. I'm doing good. Made it in. We're doing okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna fill up the generator with some fuel and then I'm gonna run the generator tonight to charge all the batteries. It's mostly the live scope otherwise I'd be okay but since I'm gonna run it anyway I might just as well charge up my Milwaukee batteries and my power bank is that's full. So yeah so yeah happy to be back. It's 7 30 so I left here at 4 30 so that's a good hard day of work right there. People say fishing is just fun but I guess it's just how you go at it you know that's what is that 15 straight hours of going hard. I'll talk a little bit more about that later how the day went because I didn't film a lot of it. Yeah so I'll talk more about that later. I'm gonna get camp ship shape right now. It looks like Reboot. My buddies from Reboot were here today and they left me a little present out there. I see a bag of Doritos and a Sun Kiss. That's pretty funny. I didn't know I knew they'd leave me something. They're great guys. I'm super bummed I didn't get a chance to fish with Reboot today. I didn't know they were coming in or I would have I actually would have changed my plans even as competitive as I am. I would have changed my plans for those guys but as I was pulling out this morning Danny pulled in just behind me he actually saw me pulling out and he's like that was freaking Joe right there and he thought maybe the wind was gonna be too much for me but in reality the wind wasn't because I went eight wind all day whereas if I stayed here I would have been fine. So I missed fishing with Reboot today that's a wicked bummer. They hammered them. They caught them really well with pike. I'll fish these pike for like a week straight and I'll fish these pike for like a week straight and it's super interesting to see you know that they don't feed every day. So two days ago Sean came in and the males were all feeding. We had six or eight bites and they were all males you know in that six to eight pound range and then yesterday they did not feed at all. So I had a pretty good feeling that they were gonna feed today with the storm coming in tonight and there's a pretty good chance they feed the next couple days too but the boys at Reboot caught two slobs. They got two over 39 inches today which are giants. So that's pretty awesome. I'm super happy for those guys. You know if you if you guys are new new-ish to my channel and you don't know Reboot it's my absolute favorite veterans group. It's just about getting guys rebooted out into the outdoors. We're gonna be baking something tonight. We're gonna do a mozzarella and stuffed shells tonight. Made of basil sauce. Then some stuffed shells that I brought from home that I made at home. Seven so there's enough for everybody plus one. Then we're gonna put some more sauce on top of those. Drown them pretty good. We don't need to have a half a jar of sauce left do we? Then it needs a layer of cheese on top. Cover it with some aluminum foil. If you look on the ends of this roll there's a push tab right there and there's another one on this side. How old were you today when you learned that you could push those two push tabs then you just pull on it and the whole roll stays in there and doesn't come out because those push tabs are holding. Little cooking tip for you. We're gonna cover that baby up. You might be boiling so we want to cover it pretty tight. Beautiful. Then into the oven she goes whether she's hot enough or not. We got some technical difficulties going on with my oven. It looks like the sidewall pushed out enough so the grate fell. I'm glad I didn't do it with this on there boiling but it's a little too hot right now to readjust so I gotta I gotta think for a minute wait. I could bring it outside and set it on the ice. You know what before we send that thing in the oven I forgot to spice it up a little bit. So let's give it some oregano basil that's all we need. Sweet basil. Could use some garlic but I don't think I brought any parsley but I don't think parsley is anything really. So yeah I'll be pretty damn tired tonight by the time this meal is cooked and I get that thing driven right into me but I know one thing I earned my pillow today. If I had a really good woman this meal would be ready by the time I got done fishing today and got back here but I don't so I gotta make it myself. Yeah I said it but yeah she's cooking now she's a little bit over 200. It's warmer in there than this meter says I found that out but we're gonna cook that. Maybe I'll just set this on top to warm that bread. It might even cook up top there. I don't know. I've never tried that. Yeah so the fishing today was it was pretty harsh pretty brutal. I'm in a crappy tournament if you guys been watching the channel lately you you know that. Wow that's bright. So yeah I'm in a crappy tournament and it's nationwide and it's your three biggest crappy by way and I've been putting up some monster numbers like average in like 16 or just under 16 inches and got my tail handed to me a couple weeks by some boys out in southern Iowa they're on some kind of reservoir farm pond where they're catching 16 and 3 quarter and 17 inches which are huge and not much for fish they don't have any shoulders on them and they don't look like they even have much meat on them but they're long and they got a big long nose on them so in a in a length tournament that's better if it was a weight tournament or if this was a 10 fish tournament I think I'd be handing it to them because I've just caught some many 15 and a half 15 and three quarters up to 16 and a quarter inch crappy but I went in to this week in last place I might have been pretty close to the bottom this week with today and tomorrow is the last day of the tournament and I woke up super early in the morning and just wasn't settling with me that I didn't give it my best effort this week and so I said well I gotta leave this place because this place has crappy it's got millions of crappy but they're not they're not big at all here historically or you just can't pick through enough to get you gotta have 15 pluses in this tournament I think so I think in Maine you got to have a 15 inch average just to be high highly respectable and that's with a buck board you know legit legit weighed in so I went to a spot where I've been hitting them pretty good lately some big ones and it was covered up in boys from Vermont there was six boys from Vermont out there all of them had live scopes dead buckets they were sneaking up on the fish these boys really knew what they were doing then the fish really weren't there you know they'd already moved on I know there's been a bucket brigade of a guy in his son or a guide that go out with a biologist and they've been filling up buckets of these crappy for the last couple weeks and taking them and I think they're worried about the spot for because I'm fishing it or whatever but if they're taking buckets out of there so anyway there were any fish there and I looked and I looked and I looked miles you know up lake down lake in out I searched for average drilled a thousand holes went through a couple batteries and never really found them so I don't know where they are it's a mystery I know they're not all dead but quite a few are so then I went to another lake that I thought I was starting to figure out but I never found the crappy there and I searched all over a new basin and never found them there I found a bunch of white birch I found one small school a small crappy and I so I left them then I went to another lake that has historically some really big ones and I know it's been getting hit hard lately my good buddy Wayne was there earlier this season he said there was some younger fellas or a group of guys there they were keeping all the big ones and trouble in the little ones back which is like the worst thing you can do but it's their prerogative so I couldn't get access to that pond because they changed the access to it they blocked off like the trail the road to get in and I could have asked but there were two guys coming out of there as I was going in and so I just left it now I was starting to come back and kind of give up on the day and you know accept the loss but that just doesn't settle with me very well and even though I was dead tired I was hungry and I knew I had a long snowmobile ride had to unload the trailer and unload the snowmobile and cook dinner tonight and everything I had an hour left the daylight so I drove past where I needed to come to get here I went to a lake that I used to catch pretty good crappy and before I even knew what I was doing but all my friends this year have been telling me there's no more crappy and it's not fishing well and it's not what it used to be at all you know they've got it pretty negative but I just couldn't believe that it's just too good of a lake so I went over I unloaded ran down Lake to the spot I used to catch them and where I found them in the past and drill the hole to look for them with a forward facing sonar and sure enough there was one like within 10 feet and I dropped down he came in eight it was 14 and three quarters so boom there we go new biggest fish for my three this week and then I proceeded to hit about 10 15 inches on the number and another 10 probably just under 15 you know 13 and three quarters to 14 and a half all of them just big thick shoulders on a meaty and you guys got to see a little bit of that footage I'll show you the three 15s I weighed in and I ended up going from last place to first place so I'm at 45 inches which is what I call respectable you know 15 averages respectable I've weighed in I think I've weighed in in this tournament in four weeks all but like two fish have been over 15 inches with three being over 16 inches so I'm I'm super happy that I still got that competitive drive in me and to even when I'm tired and hungry and you know beat down all day to go check a spot go check a lake unload knowing that I had to reload I'd be coming off that lake after dark we'll have to load up have to get fuel have to get propane and then still drive to the location to unload so I could come to where I'm set up for camp so so I'm kind of proud of myself to be honest with you it's all right to say that everyone so well you know as long as you're humble at heart I'm proud that I still got that drive at my age and and you know there's not a huge prizes in this in this tournament I don't think but it's just a matter if you can win or lose you know and second third fourth place you know is nice but if you're not if you're not first you'll ask so so I'm happy about that it's not over yet there's tomorrow and then you know I missed out on a big window to catch some giant pike today and my buddies came out and caught some giant pike right out here and I think that window is going to be open for another day and a half but the tournament ends tomorrow and I I probably have a good enough lead I got like a four inch lead on the next guy and I think it's my buddy CJ and Anna both are like three and a half or four inches behind me but you never know you know if somebody's on some Iowa pond or Minnesota or Wisconsin or you know there's a lot of awesome anglers out there in some really good states that can get on a big school of crappies so I think with the last day of the tournament for the year and for the week I'm going to go try to catch a slob where I was fishing this afternoon you know not upgrade by half inch here or there I think I'm going to try to go win the entire overall tournament my best three are like 48 and a half inches right now and if I could pop an 18 or a 17 I think that'll put me in the lead for the entire overall even over those Iowa boys that that are on that long nose pond so that's what I'm going to do tomorrow I'm going to start the day fishing crappy I just love doing it and I might finish the day on pike I don't know what I might finish the day on crappy but that's what I'm going to do tomorrow and that's that's the recap for today dinner's cooking we're well over 300 now in there I'm going to just open it up make sure we're not boiling and probably smoking but she's cooking sounds like yeah that'll do it that's what I smelled but I thought that was the funniest thing but yeah that's what happened so if you guys ever get like a bag of salmon count how many are in there and count how many you take out so you don't end up with one in mid-summer underneath your seat but yeah that was uh that was crazy yeah but really appreciate you guys tuning in for this uh for this live I'll go back and and read a bunch of the the comments and stuff Andrew Lassen good to see you buddy that's awesome good to see you on here but yeah well uh I'll get back and read these comments and stuff um I'm gonna check on dinner you guys want to check on dinner with me I don't have like a hot pad because I forgot I'd be baking but let's check on it we're gonna open up the oven I can hear it boiling so I know it's it's doing pretty good let's see if I whoa oh look at the steam coming off that can you guys see that oh this is gonna be this I wish you guys could smell how good that smells yes yep you guys are gonna get the sneak peek into dinner oh I forgot to cook the garlic bread I was talking so much garlic bread real quick that'll go oh it might have cooked all right yeah I guess it's good enough it was cooking on top of that oven too all right we're gonna shut the oven off we're gonna dish out a pretty healthy serving because I think I earned my dinner plate and my fellow tonight from how today went shovel a couple of them don't don't spill we like two or three stuffed shells let's put three on there that's eating pretty good in the ice fishing world right there piece of garlic bread stuffed shells you guys see me turn into red beard after this meal I bet ever since I grew my beard out my shirts have been so much cleaner from like here down so I got that going for me but that looks piping hot I'll show you guys dinner tonight stuffed shells oh yes it's piping hot and some garlic toast garlic toast I can I can maybe shovel a little bit of that I'll take a bite of this and let you guys know if it's edible or not I'll put some on on the garlic bread looks hot take four nice all of them you got it don't forget the Charmin yeah Donnie's cookbook yeah I got to get that together guys for you guys for sure that was worth the wait drive it right in that's 100 driven right into me you know it this is awesome I'm so stoked to have this meal in my YouTube video that I shot earlier when I was making this meal I said I said if I had a really good woman this meal would have been made before I got done fishing but I was just kidding so don't take that the wrong way totally kidding but I like to get a rise out of you guys dinner was awesome guys I'll see if I could pull a clip I forgot to use the GoPro but I shot a whole live video during all the dinner so if you happen to catch that you know how great dinner was it was stuffed shells but I'll try to pull a clip from it and show you guys what it was like it was pretty amazing drove it right into me so now I'm staffed and and I'm tired I definitely earned my my meal tonight and earned my pillow which is always a good thing but that's gonna do it for tonight I'll see you guys in the morning thanks for tuning in