Icebandits News – Augers and Lagers

Well, apparently ClaveHowser is being too lazy to put up some pics for the public from our Beaver trip. Here are a couple of the fish we got on the inland lakes. All of them produced fish, got alot of largemouths in the 14″18″ range along with enough hammer-handle pike to keep us busy. The bait of choice was def senkos, fish on the surface or sub-surface, didn’t really matter most of the strikes were visual. Looking forward to getting back next year in the spring with a bigger crew and getting into some smallies around the surrounding islands. Enjoy!

Heading up to the trailer for the night. Had a couple bandits tag along including monabass, shoppingcart, clave, gunny made and appearance along with the long lost bandit that just finished serving over-seas, AR-15. Hit up a local lake for some bass action. Caught plenty of fish on soft plastics but all the fish were running small even though we probably caught 30 largemouths. By the time we got back to the river we were pretty tipsy, but a couple of us headed out after trout despite the low water conditions. Still no salmon around up here, its gonna at least another week and a decent rain before anything shows up, up here. the trout were not real cooperative, AR-15 got a couple on a spinner and i caught a half dozen or so on a hopper/dropper combo but nothing over 10″. Spent rest of the evening at the tavern and partying with the Shocker.

Once again i’ve fallen behind on reports. I’ve had a whirlwind of about a month and a half of bachelor parties, weddings and a lot of booze consumption. It’s been cutting into our fishing time during the weekends. ClaveHowser and I just got back from a long weekend trip on Beaver Island, got in plenty of fishing with some pretty good success, i’ll wait for Howser to cover that portion as he has the majority of the photos.
8.18.10: TommyGunn and I headed up to the Muskegon to try and get into a few trout in the evening. Very few people on the river and the water is very low. Fishing was slow, i brought a couple bows to hand nymphing and had some decent fish coming to the surface into the dark of the night and couldn’t find the fly they wanted.

8.19.10: I headed up by myself to the PM this evening for a couple hours of relaxing fishing. Spend the evening throwing terrestrials with small bead head droppers. The water is incredibly low and clear. Surprisingly the trout were cooperating pretty well. Probably caught around 12 fish in a couple hours with all of them being bows except one brown, the fish ranged from 8″-17″. Highlight of the evening was missing the 17″ bow on the surface, then a couple cast later i hook up with him on the nymph dropper and got him to hand the second time.

We’ve been out several times other than this but things are starting to blur together. I’m still off work tomorrow so i’m going to spend the day stream hoping. I’ll be sure to bring the camera AND CHARGE IT this time. Tight Lines!

Missed some reports in here. Spent a couple evenings trolling out of muskegon with a few fish being brought to the boat. All kings and one laker. nothing of much size. sounds like everything is north of whitehall for the time being. Probably heading up north tonight to throw some big baits at some toad browns. Had bachelor party for Scott Tinnerman over the weekend and got plowfaced. Probably some pics to follow of the weekends shinnagins but i’m guessing most of them are too risky to throw up here.

Gunny and I headed out trolling tonight. Set lines around 7pm in 120fow. we trolled til 160fow and one of the riggers popped and after a good fight we netted this pig.

The fish hit 75′ down on the riggers on a straight orange spoon. I was up after this, we trolled around in the 160ft range for an hour or so before a dipsy went off in 160fow again, it was set 250′ back with a green dolphin spoon. After a great fight we boated another real nice king. Both fish in the 17lb range.

Gunny, Shopping cart and i hit a couple lakes between nichols and big star lake. Initial idea was to get a mess of big gills, but after catching mostly small gills we switched over to targeting bass. Most fish we caught on topwater, mostly smaller bass in the 10-14″ range but they were plentiful. Gun did get one real nice fish to the boat that went 19 3/4″. heres a pic

Headed back to the river after this for some drinks and to blow up some 1/4 sticks. We did catch one small brown just messin around

Went on the hunt in Kalamazoo in search of a good trout stream. The first stream I looked into was a warm stirred up stream fed off of a lake. I could tell this wasn’t a good trout stream before I even got out of the car. Talked to a fisherman that was there and said that the river was more common for spearing sucker. haha. Even better was that this fisherman was there in his work truck from a cable company. He had his reflector gear on and a rod in the truck. haha I’m in the wrong job.

Moved onto a different stream that we ran into. This stream looked very promising. Cold spring fed water. Put on the gear and treaded up stream a ways. As I went further up stream it did not look promising. Nothing sighted but plenty of spots for them to hide. Finally spotted some movement back down stream and tossed out a spinner. Fish on but turned out to be a chub. haha. By this time we were running out of daylight. Guess the hunt is still on for that money hole in the zoo.

Got out trolling this evening. Forecast called for 1′ waves, ended up more like 3′ers. Headed out with Gunny, Sport n Cigs, NC and Landmark. Started in 100fow and trolled to 200′ and back to 100′. We took two fish, both on the riggers aronud 160fow, 70′ down on a light blue spoon. Both kings in the 6 & 8lb range. Not a bad evening to have a couple drinks and hang out. Hopefully the surf will lay down for this weekend. Gunny and I are heading out to the Rogue tonight to try and catch a caddis and maybe a late hex hatch in the evening.

Finally some photos from the last month or two. Also fished the muskegon a couple more times and turned quite a few fish on the surface with caddis patterns and indi-fishing.

TommyGunn and I went and fished the muskegon last night for a couple hours. Temps dipped into the upper 50’s with steady rain showers all evening yet there were still a decent amount of bugs around including some drakes. Some nice fish were making there way to the surface but the deeper water and swift current kept them safe from our casts. we did bring a couple chunky trout to hand on spinners and i turned a few fish on nymphs and dries. Dry fly action should pick up with the warmer temps return. I think we’ll plan our approach from the other side of the stream next time.