The Koehn Family: Ice Fishing on Upper Red Lake

After Christmas Daddy Took mommy on her first Ice Fishing trip. They went to Park Rapids for one night to pick up Daddy's friend Mike McNichols. They ended up stying at Mike's In Laws on Two Inlets Lake. When they got there they went out to do some Crappie fishing. Daddy and Mike went out to set up the portables and then came back fro Mommy. once they were all there they started fishing. Mike was the first one to catch a fish. Mommy caught one after! She was pretty exciting. I think she said her first Crappie was about 12 inches. It was a big one! She doesn't have a picture of it, but Mike took one for her. If he send a copy to Daddy she will have to post it later. They all fished until it started to get dark. Poor Daddy didn't have any luck catching anything, but Mommy had caught another 3 crappies, but they were too small to keep. Mike ended up catching 3 more that were keepers so in all they had 4. The next morning they woke up at 6am to make the drive to Upper Red Lake. Daddy and Mike had gone there last year with some friends and they are going again in Jan. Daddy wanted to Mommy and Mike up there with the new Fish House/Camper so he could test everything for their trip January. They got there about 8:30 and was on the ice about 9am. They drove about 3 1/2 miles out onto the water and started getting the Fish House ready. It took a little work but Mike and Daddy were able to get it how they wanted. Mommy said It was amazing to see all the fish house out there on the ice. It looked like little villages in all the different places right in the middle of the water. Once the Ice House was put down and the holes were cut they got ready to start fishing. It was a long afternoon because they didn't catch one fish! They did a lot of watching movies and playing cards. After dinner they decided to stop jigging and set up the Rattle Reels for the night. They had dinner, Pizza since they didn't catch any fish and watched some more movies. They went to bed and than about 11pm they heard their first Rattle Reel go off. Poor Mike was sleeping on the cot in the middle of the floor so he was in charge of catching the fish all night. They were catching fish probably about every 2 to 3 hours during the night. The first fish Mike caught was a crappie. Mom didn't even know what it was when it came up to the hole! It was so big! It measured 13 inches and it was a fat one! He than caught about 5 more fish that were Walleyes. Most of them were too big to keep, but he finally caught one that was 12 inches and they put that one back thinking it was too small and around 7am he caught another one that was 15 inches and they kept that one. He ended up leaving shortly after that while Daddy was making breakfast. daddy made eggs and Bacon. It was yummy according to Mommy. After Mike had left the Rattle Reels kept on going off here and there and Daddy would get so excited. He missed the first one and the second one the line broke because he pulled too hard. He told Mommy with the next one she could try. She ended up catching an 18 inch Walleye. After awhile Mommy started to get tired since she didn't really sleep all night with the night fishing going on so she climbed onto the top bunk with the help from Daddy. Shortly after that one of the Rattle Reels went off very fast! Daddy knew it was a big fish. He was so excited and he didn't want to lose this one. He set the hook and started pulling up the line. The fish got close to the whole and Daddy could tell it was a big Northern! He let it run off 2 or 3 times before it was calm enough to pick up through the hole. He finally got it out and that just pumped him up and made his whole trip. Check out the pics below of it! It was HUGE! 34 inches long! That was the last fish they caught on the trip. The second night there was no bites at all. But it was a fun trip for Mom and a good test run for Daddy for his trip in Jan. Enjoy the pics below.