Tag Archives: ice fishing

Summer’s End

Like a blink of an eye the 2015 summer lip ripping session has come and almost gone. A solid year of bass, trout, beers, and bonfires. Lets take a few minutes to highlight some of our favorite moments.
(Also 2 ice fishing pictures that never made it into the mix yet, and, not to brag, are my first 1 of each fish caught!)

Starting out we turn to Maryland for the shad run. Accompanied by my good MKFF buddies Mark and Dave, we truly made an impact on the fishing scene; The river and the bars.

Flipping Shad
Flipping Shad
Well behaved shad
Well behaved shad
Heading home scenery
Heading home scenery

The following weekend was also spent in Maryland, while we prepared the family boat for the upcoming warm weather sailing season. Dave and I set-up behind the boat with some hot dogs on the lines and sat and waited. Here are the results.

Dave with a nice sized cat
Dave with a nice sized cat
3 foot eel!
3 foot eel!

Maryland out of the way we can focus on some close to home fishing!!

We head to Lake Hopatcong with some fun hybrid striper fun with my buddy Mark and his son Mark. Here’s our outcome!

Me with my first hyrid
Me with my first hyrid
Little Mark with his trophy!
Little Mark with his trophy!

And onto some local fishing with a local pond and beautiful Paulinskill river!

My beautiful girlfriend Danielle sporting her new rod and outfit!
My beautiful girlfriend Danielle sporting her new rod and outfit!
Same spot trout
Same spot trout
Same stream just 100 yards up. Paulinskill small mouth bass.
Same stream just 100 yards up. Paulinskill small mouth bass.
Local pond Large Mouth Bass!
Local pond Large Mouth Bass!

Now let’s head to some deeper water with an unexpected, typically cold temperature, guest! Off the tip on Montauk we took our friends boat out a little bit in search of Stripers! Unfortunately, we came up shore but we got a few surprises instead!

Sea Bass with a beefy hump!
Sea Bass with a beefy hump!
Unexpected shad. We caught about 25 of them the beginning of August, 125 feet down.
Unexpected shad. We caught about 25 of them the beginning of August, 125 feet down.
Our newest member, TJ, with a big Blue Fish.
Our newest member, TJ, with a big Blue Fish.

Now, the finale, those two new fish promises! Introducing for the first time ever by this blog, and this angler in particular….

Lake Trout from the Adirondacks, NY.
Lake Trout from the Adirondacks, NY.
Northern Pike from North New Jersey.
Northern Pike from North New Jersey.

So, this concludes a quick update of the ventures and fish caught by the MKFF crew. Hope you enjoyed viewing them as much as we had catching them! Come on back soon for some more updates, pictures, and good times!!

Some upcoming blogs will cover the Pulaski Salmon run in October and another awesome trip to Sanibel Island!

Ice Fish and Chips

Anyone living in the Northeast this week will agree with the following statement,”It’s a bit nippy outside.” I actually think that is an understatement, the air burns your skin it is so cold outside. There is one enjoyable thing about cold weather besides the potential for snow, that is ice fishing!

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Last weekend the MKFF RAGC crew assembled for our annual reorganization meeting. Not to be stuffy like any old hunting and fishing club, we opted to have a fish fry, with the Trout in our private club pond. Woodhead had previously purchased a deep fryer on sale at Dick’s.

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Ice Fishing

The first ice is always an excellent time to set up a tip up, that is if you don’t mind the risk of getting wet. The fish lay there hungry since the ice has recently cut off their access to the outside world. The Trout circle around the lake, pond or other impoundment. They will quickly consume whatever food is available. I prefer to jig while other people like to use a Fathead or shiner to lure in the Trout.

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Big enough Rainbow Trout can be filleted, those fillets can be deep fried or pan fried. Smaller Trout of any type can be pan fried without being filleted. Either way, properly prepared Trout has an excellent taste and texture.

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The Chips

Once the Trout that is worthy of filleting is captured the preparation must begin. We worked on preparation outside on a table in the snow, though the results were excellent, it took much longer than normal to prepare. It makes you start to understand how long it used to take hunter gatherer societies to prepare a meal.

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To get started you have to gut the fish, that is remove all of its internal organs and clean out the blood and guts that may go along with that. It is not necessary to remove the Trout’s head, in fact it is much easier to remove the fillets with the head on. To start to fillet a Trout, I like to make a long cut along the length of back. I then cut a slit after the gill plate and begin to work the fillet off of the fish.

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After the fillets are removed from the fish, you can cut them into smaller pieces and beer batter the fish. Some people like to remove the skin, generally with a Trout you do not have to. Once the beer batter has been applied, drop the Trout fillet into the boiling oil and let it cook for about three and a half minutes.

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I made the mistake of dropping all of the fillets in at once so they fried together in something of a “Trout log.” Next time, the goal is to master the fillet and the deep fry. A more controlled environment such as the kitchen will help in this process.

 

Martin Luther Bass

I had off of work for Martin Luther King Day. Traditionally, besides celebrating Dr. King’s contributions to America this is a popular ski getaway weekend. I am headed off to Utah at the end of the week for my birthday so I decided to mix business with pleasure. The zoning official was scheduled to meet me at my farm. Due to this, my day, for better or worse, was constrained to the township. In honor of Martin Luther King Day I went Bass fishing through the ice.

This guy was an eager eater after several hours of waiting.
This guy was an eager eater after several hours of waiting.

On this blog, we have briefly touched on the issues of hard water Bass fishing. Reviewing it again, the key to winter Bass is low and slow. They hold at the deepest part of a pond and prefer a weighted slow moving bait fish.

This guy hit right after the first one.
This guy hit right after the first one.

Once you have the location dialed in, select the most attractive sized shiner, and it transitions into a waiting game. Jigging with small spoons or ice flies will help keep you attention, the Sunfish will hit those. Warm sunny days are better than cold and cloudy days for most predatory fish.

The view across Frelinghuysen in January.
The view across Frelinghuysen in January.