Ice fishermen/women are a different breed

Sorry this is a late send – technical difficulties!

Heads up: This will be the only Target Walleye email this week – I’m clicking send and then hitting ice to chase walleyes out of Border View Lodge on Lake of the Woods for the next couple of days.

Last winter when I was up here, we caught TONS of numbers of fish with a handful of giants mixed in. 🙌

Hoping to duplicate this year 🤞 except this time I’ll have camera rolling the whole time, and will be bringing some fresh vids to the Target Walleye YouTube channel.

In the meantime…here’s a slough of my favorite fish catches, posts and photos from last year. Hope you enjoy it! 👊

1. My bud Eric Labaupa wrassled in this huge 12.57-lb (31″) “sack of potatoes” from Manitoba‘s Lake Winnipeg = the biggest walleye caught over the 2 days of the Keystone Walleye Tour Championship:

Nope, it didn’t come on a rattlebait…. She engulfed a 1/6-oz Acme Tackle Phoebe spoon in the “rainbow trout” colour (these are Canadian fish lol) tipped with a live minnow.

Here’s a closer look at the Phoebe:

2. Maybe the fattest JUMBO perch ever?! 🤯🐖

I know I have said that ^ phrase before, but this one seriously stepped it up another couple notches in the perchin’ belt. Posted by Pete Hiller in the Ice Junkies Outdoors FB group, who said his buddy’s kid caught this SD jumbotron last Jan. #eggwagon

Here’s another mind-boggling angle of that mutant – can’t even imagine!

We’ve got a runner-up on the fatness scale here too – Lake Gogebic, MI guide Justin Soffa shared this pic of a 14″ jumbo (that hit the 2-lb mark!) laying next to a 15″ walleye. Wow, just WOW!!!

Madness. 🤯

3. Massive MN metro crappie iced!

Panfish enthusiast Wyatt Williams caught and released the slab of a lifetime fishing metro MN waters. She measured 17.75″ long (mouth closed) with a 15″ girth and weighed just over 3 lbs!

Little background info from Wyatt:

> Way too many fishless nights, and multiple 100-hole days have gone into the past 7 yrs of trying to find a fish of this caliber. When I say [Bobby Beattie] and I have worked ourselves to death to see a fish like this, it is truly meant. All it took was luck and a high-pressure bluebird sky day to land this giant metro 17.75″, 3-lb 1-oz black crappie.

> We watched this fish on LiveScope vapor trail through a pack of smaller fish and slam a spoon with no bait, doubling over my @w2customrods Noodle. She went on 3 drag screaming pike-like runs before that giant noggin scraped up an 8″ hole.

> Huge thanks to [Bobby] for sticking to the grind with me, playing auger boy, and landing the fish that’s been keeping this dream alive.

We’ve mentioned this naked spoon before = a gold 1/16-oz Clam Jointed Pinhead Mino:

Few other shots thrown in the evidence locker:

Seriously can’t even imagine. That fish could go on the Keto diet…lose a pound…and still be considered obese:

Congrats on the fish of a lifetime, man!

Btw the current MN state-record crappie is one that’ll likely never (ever!) be broken…. A 5-lber (21″) caught from the Vermilion River back in 1940.

I haven’t been able to find a picture of it, and some folks think “it’s possible the fish was poorly identified and actually was a hybrid between a black and white crappie.” Guess we’ll never know….

From when a fisherman accidentally drags his buddy – and their shelter – across the ice after forgetting to unhook the flip-over from the back of the snowmobile before zipping back to pick up another friend on shore. It has definitely earned every bit of the 2.6 MILLION views it has gotten in the last year:

Sheesh – glad no one was hurt! That bloody-curdling “AAAAAAAGGGHHHH!” sounded like something out of a movie.

I’m actually kind of surprised it doesn’t happen more often….

[Drum-roll sound effect]

…Dan Warnest and his pet SHEEP?!

Oh, and the runner-up was definitely Greg Boje, who hits the ice with the most amount of bacon I’ve ever seen in one fish house:

Man, the internet is a strange place hahaha. 🥴

But to be fair, both of those critters are probably waaaay more chill than my GSP (named Vexi after Vexilar) hahaha:

Can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched this video from Zach Schultz now…but it’s a lot, and worth it every time:

Zach got his rod back an hour later and 100′ away…no fish attached though, dangit!

Now on the opposite end of that spectrum….

I was tempted to call this the “fish grab of the year” 👀 but I feel like a dirtbag even writing that because the occasion I’m talking about was actually me 🤡 I don’t ever want to be known as the dude that toots his own horn. But anyways….

The crew at AnglingBuzz posted this episode called “Midwinter Ice Fishing Opportunities.” The video is 38:12 long, but definitely worth a watch if you’re looking to kick your feet up.

It’s loaded with all sorts of ice-fishing goodness, few highlights: Jeremy Smith and James Lindner show how they utilize Humminbird MEGA Live for roaming basin crappies. The AnglingBuzzards cover some new gear for panfish and predators. They head north to Manitoba to highlight some of its premiere fisheries. Jeremy Smith shows how he cleans and cooks burbot. And a crew of us journeyed across Lake of the Woods in search of giant burbot…and got a big, bonus surprise.

This bonus surprise is one of those memories I will never forget, and might just be the highlight of my “ice-fishing career.”

My buddy Jason Rylander was fighting a TANK. We weren’t sure if it was a burbot, walleye, pike or sturgeon (you never know on Lake of the Woods!) but we knew whatever it was, it was BIG.

The spoon’s hook had gotten stuck on the bottom of the ice so the fish couldn’t get turned up the hole. I ended up going shoulder deep – more like neck deep – and got my hands on it. This type of thing usually doesn’t pan out, but got super lucky this time and am so pumped there’s video proof of its existence!

Can watch full AnglingBuzz Ice episode here, or jump to the specific “fish grab” story I’m talking about by clicking below:

Thx again for letting me tag along, fellas!

Even included an email addy so ANYONE could chime in – can’t make this stuff up.

And they had the billboard running on HWY 371 near Brainerd, MN the same weekend as the big ice fishing extravaganza with 10,000+ people coming to town…so no doubt a whole pile of eyes saw it.

Don’t feel too badly for Troy, though…he brought it on himself after hiring Christoper McDonald (aka Shooter McGavin from the movie Happy Gilmore) to chirp at his buddies, recording a video that said:

> “Hey Dave, Tom, Chappie, Clint, this is Shooter McGavin here. You guys really think you’re going to beat Troy on your ice fishing trip this year?”

And apparently it ended with that hearty laugh only Shooter McGavin can do LOL.

Enter revenge billboard hahaha. Full story here on how it all went down.

Back with the regular “News” section next week!

How to catch jumbo perch (location/lures/technique).

Video guru Jay Siemens hopped in a SnoBear (balmy -20°F day) with John Hoyer on Devils Lake, ND and extracted as much perchin’ knowledge as he possibly could out of Hoyer’s massive, fishy brain:

This one’s for all the tourney folks out there:

Bet he crushed ’em in pre-fishing tho. 🤣

“It’s a great day when your buddy loses his favorite PK then you catch a fish with an extra PK in its mouth!”

– That’s the caption of a post on @pklures Instagram with a little something you might occasionally see happen with northern pike…but super special when we’re talking walleyes:

Those PK Rattle Spoons and their original PK Spoon are legit fish-catchers.

Have you ever landed an ice fishing 2-for-1? This one’s coming from Ashton Stephens, who pulled off the once in a lifetime 2fer with a #3 Rapala Ultra Light Rippin’ Rap – believe that’s the “pink clown” color. So cool:

National Professional Anglers Assoc. 

MN-FISH