Looking Good..

Whelp, here's what I've been waking up to the past couple days. Sorry about the crummy cell phone picture quality.

Ice as far as the eye can see. Wayzata Bay has begun it's process of becoming ice locked. It likely won't be ready for foot travel by this weekend, but by early next week I'm sure we'll see people beginning to wander out there.

Saw a couple guys walking around on Gray's today. Didn't see any fishing or holes being drilled, but it's pretty clear that I'm not the only one who can't wait for the ice to be safe.

I added a few links to the side bar of some websites that I'd advise checking out.

Upper Midwest Outdoors is far and away my favorite fishing forum. The community is great, the people are extremely welcoming, and I've got some really great info and fishing reports from this site. Owned and operated by Shane Hendricks, this is one of a few sites I'd recommend to just about every Minnesota fisherman.

Hot Spot Outdoors is another forum that I love. I'm not as active on HSO as I am on UMO, but with the sheer amount of people that come through HSO, it's another great resource for information and fishing reports. Some really great people on these message boards as well.

Wayzata Bait and Thorne Bros are my two go-to stores for anything fishing related. Thorne Bros has the most amazing ice fishing selection you'll ever come across, and the store is full of guys who are more then willing to help. Wayzata Bait is my place for bait.

Last but not least is Lybacks Fishing Resort on Lake Mille Lacs. Obviously it's a bit unrelated as it refers to Mille Lacs, but Eddy's ice and fishing reports are some of the best out there. Lyback's does fish house rentals, storage, maintains roads (Make sure to pay your access fees!), and are all around some of the friendliest people out there. If you want a great fishing experience for a great price, Lyback's will always be my first recommendation for Mille Lacs.

I haven't managed to get my hands on a Slush Inhaler yet, but I'd like to do a product review on one of my favorite bobbers. Some of you may have noticed in the picture in my previous post that almost all of my rods, deadsticks excluded, are rigged with spring bobbers. If you haven't caught onto the spring bobber craze yet, the idea is that they allow you to detect even the slightest of bites. This is great, but in my opinion doesn't even compare to the capability these bobbers have to detect up-bites. Up-bites are exactly what they sound like, when the fish is approaching your bait from below, bites, and keeps moving upwards. With a normal bobber with a couple split shots below it, you'd never have the slightest clue that a fish was down there, but with a spring bobber, the spring will go limp, allowing you to detect those up-bites that you'd otherwise be completely unaware of.


With that being said, there's a spring bobber that I prefer over all others. I've tested the Frabill springs, HT-STB & HT-SBF springs, Easy-Bite, Clam/Jason Mitchell, and St Croix Legends springs. By far, I prefer the St Croix springs over the rest.

Keep in mind, you will be paying a bit extra for the quality, but it's worth it. These springs are unmatched. High quality, very visible, and quite durable. Another great thing about these springs is that they come in 4 different action levels: light, medium light, medium, and heavy. I like to use the light ones for gills, medium and medium light for crappies and walleyes, and occasionally the heavy for walleyes as well.

The downside to these springs, is that they were specifically designed for the St Croix Legends ice rods, something I don't use. So I had to come up with a solution, and I've found one that seems to work quite well.


These are the HT-Stb Spring bobbers. I tried these out, and didn't like them one bit, but they did come with these small foam inserts to attach the spring to the end of your rod. Pick up a pack of these (Found them at Mills Fleet Farm for $2.00) and your choice of St Croix spring.






Insert the spring into the foam insert, and put that into the top eye hole on your rod. Here's a picture of how I do it.



Simple enough! So there you have it. Again, you will be paying a bit more for this setup then you will for other springs, but I guarantee you will not regret it. These are the Aston Martins of spring bobbers.

Pros:
- Comes in multiple action levels
- High visibility
- Very durable
- Great action
- Bar none, some of the best spring bobbers around

Cons:
- Expensive (In total, the setup will run you about 10$ a piece. 9$ per spring + ~1$ per foam insert.
- "Some assembly required."

That's all for now. Here's hoping the next post includes some action shots on the ice!