So i told my fishing bud "hey i got a tip from a guy about this little 20 acre lake full of jumbo perch" He said lets go! So we took off this friday and headed up to northern wisconsin to find this lake. I found it on a topo map and put in the info, and when saterday morning came we loaded up the pull sled and started off through the woods. This lake has no roads, or any kind of access to it except foot travel.
About a half hour into the hike we got up on a high ridge and figured the lake was somewhere below so we started down it while holding the sled back from running us over.the whole time i am thinking what a bitch it will be getting out of here.
When we got within 50 yrds of the lake the windfalls were all over and made it a bitch to get into there but we managed. The lake was like i imagined, no one was there of had been there from the evident lack of tracks and old holes. It was really cool..
We fire up the power auger and punched 6 holes to start, and the flasher showed fish right away. I immidiatly pulled 2 bass out with my jig pole, what a rush. Then it happened, i thought i had another bass on but instead pulled up a 13" perch! i thoght this is it, we will slay them. I manged a half dozen more bass before i got my second perch. then things got slow, and it was surely a morning bite gone dead. We swiss cheesed the ice and found a couple more perch and a ton of bass.
Now i got the bad news that Rolfs back went out as he stood up from his bucket. Oh boy, this is not gonna be pretty. We decided not to wait for the evening bite to start abd headed back out by noon. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get the sled back up out of that valley and back to the truck. This was like elk hunting with a sled! I had to do all the pulling because of rolfs back. he had to help push up the hills or we would have had to leave the sled and power auger until spring, and he owned them so he pushed, bad back and all.
I think i would go back there but only on new ice when the fishing is better and the ice is much thinner so we could just take a hand auger out there. The ice was 2 1/2 feet thick so going the first time without knowing the lake a power auger was a must.
Well i caught 3 of the 4 perch and about 25 bass. so it was still fun. We released al the bass, and shouldnt have because they are a bit stunted from overpopulation.
The next day we went for bluegills on a much easier lake and i limited out (25) before noon on jumbo gills, some up to 10".
It was a fun trip and i hope to return to the secret perch lake one time this coming summer to try it when the action it better. a honeyhole like that is hard to find(and get too) Here a few pics, including the sled from hell.
About a half hour into the hike we got up on a high ridge and figured the lake was somewhere below so we started down it while holding the sled back from running us over.the whole time i am thinking what a bitch it will be getting out of here.
When we got within 50 yrds of the lake the windfalls were all over and made it a bitch to get into there but we managed. The lake was like i imagined, no one was there of had been there from the evident lack of tracks and old holes. It was really cool..
We fire up the power auger and punched 6 holes to start, and the flasher showed fish right away. I immidiatly pulled 2 bass out with my jig pole, what a rush. Then it happened, i thought i had another bass on but instead pulled up a 13" perch! i thoght this is it, we will slay them. I manged a half dozen more bass before i got my second perch. then things got slow, and it was surely a morning bite gone dead. We swiss cheesed the ice and found a couple more perch and a ton of bass.
Now i got the bad news that Rolfs back went out as he stood up from his bucket. Oh boy, this is not gonna be pretty. We decided not to wait for the evening bite to start abd headed back out by noon. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get the sled back up out of that valley and back to the truck. This was like elk hunting with a sled! I had to do all the pulling because of rolfs back. he had to help push up the hills or we would have had to leave the sled and power auger until spring, and he owned them so he pushed, bad back and all.
I think i would go back there but only on new ice when the fishing is better and the ice is much thinner so we could just take a hand auger out there. The ice was 2 1/2 feet thick so going the first time without knowing the lake a power auger was a must.
Well i caught 3 of the 4 perch and about 25 bass. so it was still fun. We released al the bass, and shouldnt have because they are a bit stunted from overpopulation.
The next day we went for bluegills on a much easier lake and i limited out (25) before noon on jumbo gills, some up to 10".
It was a fun trip and i hope to return to the secret perch lake one time this coming summer to try it when the action it better. a honeyhole like that is hard to find(and get too) Here a few pics, including the sled from hell.
