Another short trip, cold and no luck

Went fishing for a couple of hours (same spot as yesterday more or less). Met one of the board members (Xiaolu) out there....and luckily too. I brought all my stuff (nothing forgotten at home) but I left my cooler, which has my power drill and my wallet and thus my fishing license. Only realized when I got to the first spot to set up (it was near Xiaolu). James was kind enough to lend me his power auger to punch a couple of holes and I was ok to stay in one place since I didn't have much time to fish but then realized my fishing license was in there so left my stuff with James and made the 15-20min walk back to the car (I hit 12K steps today but lost fishing time ) I think forgetting the cooler for the fish must have been a sign that I was not going to bring anything home...and I did not.
But I finally got to flip-over the flip-over since it was pretty cold out there (not much wind though or I would have stayed home)....it's a very small flip-over meant for one but even then it's tight (and I am not a large person but a float suit bulks anyone up) but doable, not insulated so heating creates lots of "rain" inside. The legs I put on the shelter worked well but of course the spring clips stuck a bit with the snow, slush and water that gets on the legs (I plan to spray some dry grease on the legs so they should hopefully slide up and down a bit smoother). Now with these retractable legs on skis, I may start thinking about a larger flip-over since it is much easier to pull and I don't need to take my Smitty (will use that for the pop-up shelter and the ton of non-fishing stuff needed when the family goes out).

...legs up and ready to be pulled. I waxed the skis as well with a biodegradable, rub-on ski wax (no heat needed) and it made a big difference. I didn't want to use ski "waxes" that contained Teflon or petroleum products since it will be going into the lake and found a plant-based ski wax on Amazon - seems to work as well as other ski waxes I have used in the past.

Nice to have met you John again on the lake

I was a bit lucky in that I landed a whitefish early in the morning

But I was also quite unlucky in that around 4:00PM and within 5 minutes I lost two fish (one laker followed by a whitefish) at hole!!!

Fished a long day from 8:30AM to 5:30PM

The whitefish lost at hole:

Nice whitefish James!

Good stuff guys! What was the ice thickness on your lake?

It was around 6 inch solid black and quality ice with about 2 to 3 inch crappie ice on top, and there were lots of snowmobiles "flying" around

A perfect specimen

Very nice you were able to go home with at least one fish with such a long drive and getting out there that early in that cold. It's one of those days. Marked enough to have made for an excellent trip if half of them bit and were hooked. Of course, then there is the getting them out of the hole and onto the ice part too

Thats a nice Whitie James.

Arnie