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!

Great report Flukes...especially remembering the human side of fishing....great catch....sharpening your skills comes with more experience....I think you had a successful first trip.

Arnie

Dinner

I love making lists. The problem is i spend about the same amount of time looking for that list ))
It will get better as things start to "live" temporarily in the car.

Agree. Last summer/fall, it took a while to get into the routine of fishing from my yak and after a few trips, everything was routine. Even the soreness of all the lifting, moving stuff around and pedaling became routine and less achy afterwards...of course, catching fish helps with all that soreness too

Could have been nice but I gave it to a neighbour who eats fish once a week (store bought) and doesn't ice fish anymore because his aging body is catching up to him (I can imagine that happening at some point too) and my little one doesn't really like lakers as much as WF so my focus has been on WF (lakers are incidental and I will give most away if they do not look like they will make it if released or are just too big to eat).

Congrats on the successfull first trip! Hopefully the cold weather stays and you have many more successful outings.
I lost a vibrato this fall in a similar way, I just did not close the snap properly while changing the lure. Still try to do it without glasses...

I have also been a victim of this clasp failure and vibrato loss. Nice laker.

Why you guys using clasps/snaps with vibratos?