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Poopdeck

Promising weather report

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With lows in the single digits and highs in the upper teens to low 20's for the next ten days I went out and dug my ice gear out of the shed. Gonna reline a few tip ups, tweak the tip downs and respool the ice rods in preparation for safe ice next weekend. I've been meaning to reconfigure my sled but I think I'll have o put that on hold till summer. I say this every year. Man I love this time of year. Anybody else hitting out there like hitting the ice?

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With this cold weather coming in I've dragged in some apple wood I've been drying for a couple of years and am turning out Christmas gifts on my lathe for next year. I've got my kerosene heater running strong in the basement shop right now, i can work down there in a T Shirt as long as I keep that sucker full tilt ! I gave up ice fishing a bunch of years ago, I don't even own a proper insulated suit at this point, nor tip ups. We rarely get true safe ice around these parts anyway, especially in the spring fed lakes and ponds. Although they say about 3 years ago it got to 16" but that's a once in two decades affair right there. I've seen 12" on Jan 1 before, then in Feb be fishing open water.

 

If it stays cold I'll probably build a couple of rods this winter too, a 10 ft 4wt nymphing rod and a 4/5 two handed spey.

 

I'm buying a new vise next week to add to my HMH tube vise ( got a $200 gift certificate to Bears Den for Christmas to go towards a new vise). I'm tossed between an HMH Spartan and a Renzetti 2000 with adjustable arm. Note the indoor activities list, bad enough I'll have to go out and blow snow at some point I suppose .

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News flash!

 

Man found dead in basement! Kerosene heater suspected of depleting oxygen levels while man worked on lathe. Lathe was still running.

 

Just one more reason why I hate cold weather.

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Chug, that is a beautiful picture. Where is that?

 

Dave, that's why I'm so excited! Last year we did not have any safe ice locally. my shop is in the garage and I shut it down for the winter. My lathe is actually in my back yard but I can't use it since tearing my knee up in March.

 

Flats, Cold is okay it's the snow that sucks and we've had no real snow and there's no snow projected over the next ten days. There's no better tasting freshwater fish then crappie and perch through the ice.

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I hit the ice earlier this week! And every time I did I lost control and slammed down on my back. Darn icy spots in the snow. My left arm, both knees, both wrists, and my back are trying to tell me skiing isn't for me I guess.

 

IMG_5252.PNG

 

 

(I'm far right, next to my girlfriend.)

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Good luck to ya if ya get out poopdeck, and be safe. I never got into ice fishing myself so no plans for that, but I think I may hit a local river for a bit of steelheading soon as the temps warm up a tad. I don't mind fishing in 30-40f temps but this 0-20f temp is a no go right now.

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News flash!

 

Man found dead in basement! Kerosene heater suspected of depleting oxygen levels while man worked on lathe. Lathe was still running.

 

Just one more reason why I hate cold weather.

I've been using a kero heater of one iteration or another down there for 40 years Mike.. Not happening, especially in my basement, one might say it's well vented.

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@poopdeck, eastern sierras last February. Upper Owens. Not actually so cold (5-40 degrees). Here it is in March:

post-60546-0-37350100-1514570258_thumb.jpg

post-60546-0-82526000-1514570270_thumb.jpg

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Living here in the great white north you have to ice fish if you don't want to spend 4 months of the year waiting for open water. Three feet of snow makes accessing some remote lakes much easier than in summer as well. Also the lakes I fish aren't anything like Flytire's picture thank goodness.

 

Les

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Living here in the great white north you have to ice fish if you don't want to spend 4 months of the year waiting for open water. Three feet of snow makes accessing some remote lakes much easier than in summer as well. Also the lakes I fish aren't anything like Flytire's picture thank goodness.

 

Les

But, ya gotta admit that flytires picture says, parteeeeeeeeeeee!

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That picture screams good times. Usually we will make an outing on the ice one night a year. We set up a big wind break and take a grill to grill up some sausage, venison burgers and fresh perch if we can manage to catch them. Typically I just go with one or two other guys and we move around the ice a lot. Drill a hole, jig it a while than set up a tip up and go drill another hole to jig. When we get rolling we can be fishing 10 to 15 holes as we continually move about until we find lots of fish. We don't have electronics so we depend on the blitzkrieg method. All the walking and manual drilling keeps you warm and a single burner propane stove keeps the hands warm.

 

Steeldrifter, my A list fishing partner is from buffalo NY. He harangued me for years to go ice fishing. One day I agreed, screwed a wood box on a set of skis and the rest is history. We go for crappie and perch which is kind of amusing since I prefer larger targets any other time of the year. Try it, you might just enjoy it.

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