Day 2, Kinkaid

Chad Cain, arctic explorer.

I said yesterday that ice was starting to form on the lake's surface as we were leaving. It should have been obvious to us what that would portend. It was in the 20s all night, so in the AM when we got back out there, a nice sheet had formed on much of the lake. Not believing it could possibly be all that thick, Chad decided we would bust through it since the "main lake must be open" and all we had to do was go through the thin ice to get there. Turns out, the ice wasn't all that thin. It was easily over a half inch in places. So Chad used one of his tried & true techniques, the reverse creep & gun. We would back up slowly, then gun the engine forward once we hit the ice edge to create a wake that would bust up the next 20 feet or so. Repeat.

After over an hour clearing a path to the main lake, we discovered the main lake wasn't open, either. We weren't finding bait fish where we could fish, so we went back to the coves where we were the day before that are usually so successful this time of year. Of course, they were fairly iced, too. He invented a new technique for that area, the Big Donut. He'd run 3/4 throttle in a circle to create an even bigger wake. Eventually, he created a big enough area of broken ice that what wind there was able to carry a sufficient amount away to allow us to troll a very small circle. We finally put poles in the water over three hours after we initially put in.

No muskies.

It was at least 40 degrees, so some ice was melting. We went back to the main lake and found the baitfish (gizzard shad). He told us beforehand that when we finally found the baitfish they would black out the sonar. I don't think my father believed him. There was so much shad that the sonar thought the cloud of fish was the bottom of the lake and got confused. We even "harpooned" a few with our trolled lures. You could actually feel the cranks pounding the shad by touching the rod as we plowed through the bait cloud. We saw a Bald Eagle, Osprey and many icecicles:



















But still, no muskies.

We went back to the coves and the effort Chad put in to break the ice in the area paid dividends. Much of it was gone, so we were able to cast a bit. We got about an hour of casting in before it started to rain. We were watching the radar pics on my BlackBerry and knew the storm was coming. It was turning dark anyway, so we headed out, fishless (so long as you don't count harpooned shad).

Tomorrow looks to be our best chance. It is supposed to be creeping over 50 degrees and most of the ice should have melted by then. Maybe they will be in the shallows, which would be the best possible scenario. Despite the clouds and the ice, I managed to get my face a bit sunburned, dammit. It will look like I went to the Bahamas to the uninformed. Since that's where I told my father we were going to go for this trip (I baited and switched him), I suppose that's just as well.

I will leave you with an instructional video demonstrating proper ice-breaking techniques with a Ranger. Be sure to listen for the sound of ice slushing and cracking, both against the boat and from the boat's wake. Chad explains himself (sorry about the crappy audio) at the end.