Grouse Hollow Journal for the week of
March 20, 2014 by Greg Koelker
It is St. Patrick's Day morning and I
just came in from rinsing the fishy water out of the Stolen Cooler.
The cooler has often been fishy, but not from South Dakota perch
filets thawing in it. A couple of weeks ago, my nephew Cory Hauk and
his dad, Brian invited me along to ice fish in South Dakota. They
have been out there a few times and know the area pretty well. On
Thursday last, Brian and I were the first cohort to embark, taking
off in my loaded-to-the-hilt-with-ice-fishing gear Ranger, from River
Falls about 10 AM with the intention of fishing on Big Stone Lake on
the border of Minnesota and South Dakota that afternoon. The trip to
Big Stone City from River Falls takes less than 4 hours if the roads
are good, and they were perfect on Thursday. Interestingly enough,
the farther west we went, the less the snow cover. There were many
potholes filled with frozen over sky blue water in the fields and
along the road.
At the far side of Minnesota, we
stopped at Artie's Bait Shop in Ortonville so Brian could buy his
non-resident annual license ($69). I had got my 3-day non-resident
license online: $39 including a $2 online convenience fee. At
Artie's we bought some red spikes and a couple lures, but we had to
go the Big Stone City, South Dakota city hall to buy a South Dakota
license.
Anyway, we drove north to a landing on
Big Stone Lake and motored out across the partially water covered and
slushy ice. The landing was a bit rough, but the ice was plenty
thick, like three and a half feet anyway. By the time Brian's power
auger punched through, the engine was right on the ice. He punched
a dozen holes. I dropped in my Vexillar transducer and started
marking some fish right away. I was fishing with a Swedish pimple
with a treble hook tipped with three red spikes for bait or “meat”
as the boys called it. I caught one small perch and then a couple of
keepers, but we both had to move about to find fish. Brian started
out with a jigging Rapala tipped with a minnow head. The wind was
not bad, but on the ice even a little wind makes itself known. The
sun was high for most of the day out there. Cory and his friend,
Scott pulled in a couple hours behind us. By then I had changed to
what I would call a fire-tiger colored Kastmaster jigging bait. It
was either that or just dumb luck, but I started catching some nice
perch. Once while wrestling the treble hook out of a perch's tough
lips with my Leatherman fishing pliers, I broke a hook off, leaving
the jig with only two hooks on it. No big deal, right? Wrong.
Apparently, the two hook jig's action completely changed as I
couldn't get a fish to ever look at it! I finally changed out to
what I called a Barbie Doll colored Kastmaster and the perch, dandy
perch - like 11 plus inchers, started coming up the hole almost like
they were standing in line for free beer. I am not making this up,
and yes it was me catching the fish.
Anyway, Cory exploded the back of his
pickup and put out some tip downs with minnows on them and started
making more holes. Before we left, Brian and Cory's friends: Tom,
Chad, and Cory showed up and watched us fish. Cory and Scott and
Brian and I fished until dark. We had to drive another hour plus to
our base camp in Webster, a really nice house Cory rented for the
weekend. That night we cleaned forty dandy perch, mostly caught by
yours truly and Cory. After some pizza and a cocktail, I hit the
hay around 11. More next time . . .
Until next time, get out - don't forget
to renew your fishing license in the next week or so. Sure and
begorrah, you'll be heading out to fish and realize it - maybe too
late - otherwise. Ellen is fixing corned beef and cabbage for
supper tonight. I'm not Irish, but I am sure lucky. Enjoy.
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