Cade Laufenberg

This one was my first bass of 2007 in open water. So I guess it is special. Note the jerkbait. Good spring color. the bass also had good spring color ;D

turtle

This one was only around 12" but wanted to get a shot with me in the background after my friends came to join in on the fun

I finally was able to stick some bass on the river today. Unbelievable. We were ice fishing last weekend and temps in the 80's brought the water temp in the 60's in the backwater that I prefer early season. Needless to say I stuck some fish. A jerkbait got the job done and they were smacking it good. Details to follow : I didn't catch any hogs, but I was able to catch several bass, with 3 keepers in the 14-15" mark. Instead of using the normal finesse techniques, these fish wanted a hard jerked jerkbait and they were just eating it up. A lot of fish were in a foul mood and wouldn't touch anything, but that irratically jerked x rap or a different jerkbait would trigger a few into some killer strikes. I caught between 8 and 10 bass most in the 12" range and like I said, 3 keepers. I had a miss hap at shore which would have put me at 4 keepers I think. I didn't get a good look at that one, but I bet it was 14". I'm extremely happy that I have caught some fish finally. It's been a long winter, and I'm also pumped that I've done it on March 26th! I know these aren't big fish. But It's SOOOOO early in the season to be catching fish, I'm just so greatful to even get a bite right now. And here I actually caught some keepers! ;D

Nice fish ck14. Those are some good ones! You are lucky that they are "up shallow" Though. We got at least a month til spawn is anywhere in the picture :'(

LOL bassassin. Thats brutal! 2 weeks ago we got over 30" in 2 seperate storms. Thankfully, its mostly gone. The river is still frozen though. Us northern guys have to go through a lot of withdrawls before we finally get to fish :'(

Congrats dude!! That is really awesome that you could catch them in those conditions. I was out on the river today for the first time in quite a while. The problem is, that 30" of snow melted way too fast and the water is up 3 or 4 feet. There is 0 visability and everything is flooded. The water is cold, muddy and high on the main channel. Obviously not a bass environment. This is a tough time of year for an outdoor fishing enthusiast because there is too much ice in the backwaters to fish where the bass are (slow moving, clearer water) but there isn't enough ice to fish on. By next weekend we should be in the backwaters getting into the swing of things though! Good luck this year rocknfish..You are definitely having a great start! Ps- nice cop shades ;D

Wow awesome fish! Just curious, what do you consider northern bass?? I consider the bass I'm catching to be northern strain and they are sitting under 12+" of ice and the water temp is in the 30's! ;D doesn't matter where you are catching them though, those are great fish anywhere. And the smallies...NICE.

wow, I have been logged off BR for a very long time (18" of ice on the river is keeping me out of the boat :'( ) but I just saw this post. What an incredibly awesome idea! If it's still around in a few weeks, don't be afraid to send it my way! We still have TOO MUCH ice, but we should be out in a couple weeks finally. One suggestion, sorry, I haven't had time to read all 9 pages ;D so it may have been said, but maybe we should put some kind of key chain float on it..Don't know if that sinks or not, but boy would that suck to drop it in the water :'(

The DNR website has a good recommendation for people that don't want to fall through. YOu aren't going to fall through on 4" of ice. I will start ice fishing around here when we have 2" of solid clear ice. 6" of deteriorating Ice can be more dangerous than 2" of forming ice. Take an ice cube, set it outside on an 85 degree day for 10 minutes. Take another one out of the freezer. See which one breaks easier.. The DNR does not want to tell people that 2" is safe ice because It's not. If the ice is clear and hard, many people will fish on it. However, Ice conditions are so variable, the DNR would be out of their mind to tell people to go on 2" of ice..they'd be looking at a lot of law suits!

Congrats! trout through the ice are a blast! We had a major cold front come in saturday night. Ice fishing was pretty slow yesterday. how much ice you got?

'nother week and you'll be driving 4 wheelers on that ice! This december we played on 2" ;D

heres me with one of our "average" 11" crappies...I love this sport!

Here are some of the crappie Pictures. Obviously, my buds think its time for a fish fry ;D I know 68 Fish is a lot to keep, but between a group of 4 that adds out to 17 per person well under the limit of 25 and way under the posession of 50 per person. Just to clear that up before I get jumped for being a "poor" conservationist. I believe it is Ok to take enough for a fish fry...once in a while....I have one bag of a dozen or so panfish in my freezer and thats all. My friends took all the fish from this trip as I didn't want any. pics to follow..I'll be out more this weekend and hopefully will be able to post some results!

We should have had a snowday yesterday...driving conditions were terrible. We picked up 5" of snow and some really cold temps are the aftermath of the system. The mercury was sitting at -2 this morning.... This weekend we did really well and picked up a bunch of nice crappies and a few good size bluegills as well. The Ice is starting to shape up nicely here, and we are able to fish in most of the areas that we want to. the majority of my weekend was spent on 2" or less of ice though, So its not real thick yet. With these cold temps, it may be a little thin, but its stiff and can support a lot of weight. By this weekend we should have some real good ice...Maybe we will be able to drive on it after all this year! ;D I'll post some pics of the weekend if I remember tonight... Later, Cade

Yes, It is scary! But I hate to be the bringer of bad news...A change is a comin' for you guys out east! its 19 here right now and falling...supposed to have lows below 0 next week...that should be fun for everyone just starting to get used to that 70 degree air! ;D

one more bluegill from Sunday. this is all I got saved on my computer, so i'm done for now. Thanks Cade

this is my boat in action- on the ice

heres a 9-1/4" gill

All of last nights fish fry...

some yellow perch from last night

I'll post a couple more pictures from recently, but don't have the time to put as many pictures on here as I tried to the other night...but you'll get the idea

Oh man, I'm sorry. It worked fine when I first posted it :-? I did everything exactly the same as the tutorial did, and it didn't work. I am posting these pictures directly from another fishing website...It worked before but doesn't now. Is this site not allowing that sites URL on here or what? I don't have anything on photo bucket, but I can post a couple pictures the old fashioned way by attatching them to my post. I feel really stupid right now :'( My friend caught this 13-1/4" crappie with me last night while scouting out a brand new spot. We caught some perch, crappies, and bluegills. The ice is still ok, but most of the river is wide open. Some cold weather is coming soon with some below zero temps and its snowing right now! Bring on the REAL wisconsin winter!

If you can believe it, open water will be mentioned in my fishing report This is not something that will often get talked about in west central WI, but this year, its reality :-[ we have open water everywhere, even on small lakes and ponds :-? its pretty scary actually. We should have 1 or 1-1/2 feet of ice on most of these places...and boating is something that is forgotten about until early april. Again, not this year. with warm temperatures, We have lost most of our ice and the river is wide open. A lot of guys are taking advantage of this, but the bass bite seems to be pretty much non-existant with a 35 degree water temp. I did see 1 decent looking largemouth on the camera, but didn't try to fish for it. It was hanging under a massive shad pod in around 10ft of water with mud bottom near some timber. I looked for smallies around wingdams and sand drops in main channel areas just out of the current, and found nothing but some sand, more sand, and a couple rocks mixed in ;D instead of targeting bass, I realized it would be bluegills and crappies that would trip my trigger for today, and about the only way I could keep from skunking myself. I pulled the boat up into a couple bays and drove up onto some ice. Ice wasnt bad, about 3-1/2 inches in the first bay, and 6" in the second bay. Both bays produced some small gills and crappies, with an occasional bull gill around 9". It was pretty fun and I was happy because I have never fished these spots before. I'll be evaluating the one bay a little more tomorrow with a group of friends. should be interesting. As far as the rest of my winter, I haven't been posting on here much. But I have been doing some hard ice fishing despite the rain and warmth. It really wasn't until last Monday when the ice became too trecherous to walk on. It firmed up a bit with over night lows in the mid 20s occasionally, but highs in the mid 40s and up to 50 degrees did more damage than building Before the melting, I was doing well On big bluegills near my home. using a small ice jig in an assortment of colors with purple and black taking top honors has been putting fish on ice for me. A purple or black shrimpo is doing the trick and is much nicer than having to bait up after every fish. (this is a plastic bait) I have been using my Camera and flasher to find and catch fish better than a majority of other people on the ice. Here are some pictures of the nice bluegills and crappies I have got since November 26- today. Hope you enjoy them. I enjoyed a lot of them golden brown on my plate ;D My buddy Justin P. with a nice open water crappie... another from my buddy Me with a crappie Crappies are a blast...These were from open water, the night before ice up. ..... heres a good gill. you can see my flasher set up in the background. a nice little bluegill this is what it's like to be Jesus...walking on water ;D heres a good gill nice gill here's a good sized, yet colorless bluegill today a very nice bluegill out of 17 foot of water today. this is from today, my rig on the ice. I had to drive up on it and hop out from there Thats all for now...thanks for viewing! Cade

WOW! Nice hogs! I see you are taking full advantage of this unseasonably warm weather...I don't know if you guys get ice in Virginia, but we do up here in WI..We should be driving vehicles all over it right now. Took the boat out for the first trip since November today. wanted to do some bass fishing, but water temp was 35 degrees and I didn't see any fish pretty much everywhere...I was dragging the aqua vu around deep sand flats, drops, a little rip rap, timber and wingdams. I boated up to some ice and did some ice fishing instead. seems like we are just a few degrees different than you guys..and those few water temp degrees are making all the difference in the world for me Nice fish, Hope you whack 'um tomorrow while I stand on 6" of hard water ;D