Ice fishing ... finally!

Had a couple of hours to fish so headed out to the lake closest to me. First spot marked every ~10min. but slow marks so moved out deeper to where I did reasonably well in the softwater season in this area of the lake. Within 10min., I had the first fish of my season...a 21+" laker. Second fish hooked about 5-10min. after that one and after about 2 secs. of weight, everything went limp....thought the line had broke but turns out the snap opened and fish took off with my not-so-cheap vibrado...rookie mistake (I didn't give the terminal tackle a once over, which I usually do after each decent sized fish....first ice trip and still very rusty; just glad I didn't have any major mishaps like leaving a critical part of the equipment at home (I forgot to bring the auger on a first trip of the season ....luckily the spud was enough to open holes and there were other holes around to fish out of).
Had other chases but being so rusty and not automatically knowing where things are (due to some custom-mods for my flip-over so I need to get use to the new locations of things (and some will still change to get more efficient). Also, decided to get my hand augers converted to a power drill so first time really using it fishing (worked fine...good enough for this year). I put retractable legs n my flip-over so they are can be extended when walking out and retracting when I get to my fishing spot so I can lower the flip-over onto the ice and sit inside without the need to remove the skis - no more flip-over on Smitty sled and needing pull it on/off). And the skis come off to fit into the car.

So, overall, a decent start to the season (should have had two fish - don't know what that second was) and could have had maybe more if I was not so distracted by trying to figure out all the new stuff going on with my equipment. I actually still haven't flipped over my "new" flip-over's canopy (got it on the "Buy and Sell" here last year from another board member and so far, it's just been a sled to carry more stuff).

I even forgot about my derby card for the photo and had to retake a photo in the parking lot with it (will submit that photo later). The fish looked alot nicer when it was still alive.

Successful first trip out- bagged a lake trout and broke in some new gear! By your next outing you’ll have fine-tuned your system that much more and it will pay off.

Hopefully, the fish will also continue to cooperate to allow me to test out some stuff.

Great story and nice catch. Keep on keeping on!

Nice fish, never hurts to have a check list for the gear you are taking. Sometimes it easy to forget even the obvious, like Kevin in Home Alone. LOL.

Nice laker, and a great and successful first trip. See you sometime soon on THE lake.:-)

Nice laker!