Jordan and I arrived to meet Jimmy Lewis at 6:30 am on Friday to see even more ice than we had expected. It was snowing and there was a good 4 inches of snow over the ice, making it tough to tell where it was thick and where it was thin. We could see that there was no way to break though that quantity of ice so we started evaluating the shortest distance to the edge of the ice where it met open water. We drove the rigs to the closest spot we could find and then pushed them off the trailers and began working our butts off, pushing them towards the open water. We had a good ¼ mile to slide the boats and let me tell you, it’s not as easy as you might think. For some reason, the snow tends to stick to the hull unless it is really cold, and this morning it was just warm enough to make it very tough going. We managed to get both boats over half way to our destination and it was just getting too sticky to continue. We called over to the resort and good ol’ Tom was all fired up and ready to help out with his trusty “Yama Dog” snowmobile. This beast of a machine has a low gear and he has helped us out in the past when we’ve been in a pinch. Check out this video I shot from the back of the boat as Tom towed us along. Then take a look at this clip of our final push onto the water…er, ice. It was still 5 inches thick at the edge of the ice so it took one more good shove to float the boat. Victory was ours!

It had taken 4 hours to get the boats in the water and now it was time to go fishing. We started out and quickly found that the fishing was not red hot. I always have these visions of the virgin lake offering unfair advantages to the fisherman, but it is not the case many times. Trophy fishing is rarely a gimme, and usually requires real dedication to meet with success. It was a few hours before Jordan finally connected and it was a nice male brown of over 4 lbs, taken with a customized Bomber stickbait sent deep with leadcore line. I followed up shortly thereafter with a smaller brown of around 20 inches. Those would be the only fish of the day for us, and we were curious to hear how Jimmy had done at the other end of the lake. We later learned that he had only stuck one fish, too, but his was a dandy hookjaw brown of 28 inches and 7 lbs. The nice buck had been tricked by the new AC Stickbait in a 5 inch rainbow pattern. This lure has been doing well for other anglers in the network and Jimmy and I were both sporting the latest run of improved action lures. AC Plugs has really dialed this one in to a killer bait. Nice work gentlemen!

That night we were joined by hardcore TTH’ers RD, Brian Wildish, and Bret Martin. Bret would be fishing with Jimmy, and RD had brought his boat. The 6 of us jumped on the task of getting the new boat to the water and we pushed it all the way to the water like a pack of wild animals.

Saturday morning was cool and calm. The water temp was still holding at 36-37 degrees, and we were hoping to hit that hot bite. As our lures came up to Simax Pt, I hooked up with a tough fish and he was pulling hard. I landed the 4+ lb hookjaw just as RD and Wildish cruised by and gave them a little show of how it’s done J After the release we continued on towards the boy scout camp. As we approached the camp, my rod went off and I was fast into an energized fish that clearly had some size. This fish fought great – long runs and lots of bull dogging, but he finally gave up the battle and Jordan slid the net under a fat laker of 11+ lbs. A quick photo and he was on his way to grow huge. On we trolled and soon found ourselves coming into Tandy Bay. It was Jordan’s turn and he was playing tug of war with a pretty hen brown that went just under 4 lbs. Tandy Bay was feeling really fishy and I got the AC itch and clipped on my new 5 inch Stickbait in rainbow. It was slammed in the first 5 minutes but it didn’t stick, and then an hour or so later it held tight when fish number 2 came along. I nice fight resulted in a 25 inch, 5+ lb  female brown to the boat. At this point I became totally sold on this little AC Plug. We continued to troll the hot afternoon bite in Tandy Bay and before long my rod went down hard. This fish was all power as it produced massive headshakes and aggressive runs. It then came at me fast and I raced to keep a tight line. Then it was a couple more big headshakes followed by nothing. I don’t think I am going too far out on a limb to say that this fish was likely the big brown I was after. My heart was beating out of my chest with adrenaline after that. Sadly, I lost that hot lure a short time later due to an incedent that will go unmentioned…

We learned later that Bret had scored a killer 6 lb hookjaw on a larger AC Stickbait, and RD had picked up some nice lakers of 9 and 16 lbs. Oh yeah, I almost forgot… Old man Lewis claimed king of the lake honors that day with an incredible laker of 38, inches and 23 lbs which hit a shallow running 7 inch Assassin in Rainbow. Look out trophy trout, the old Jimmy is back!!!

Sunday morning it was a cool 15 degrees. There was a lot of ice skimming the surface and the barometer was on the fall. Not great conditions for the trophy trout hunter, but we all pressed on to try to scratch up a trophy. It was a long boat ride with no bites for me and a short strike for Jordan. We passed King Jimmy and he had put a 5 lb brown to the boat… There was hope, but the day was drawing to an end quickly. The plan was to meet up at the launch point at 1:00, and as we rounded the point with 5 minutes to spare we saw that the other boats were there and the guys were not around. I called up Jimmy and he told me they would be down with Tom in 15 minutes, so that left time for one more run along the ice line. We knew that our gas supply was low, but figured we had enough for this short run… oops! As we were on the return run, we declared the trip finished. Just as we said it, the motor ran out of gas. We were still 150 ft from shore and the wind was pushing us fast towards the ice. Luckily we had the electric motor hooked up and Jordan kicked it on. As I started to rip my little AC to the boat it got hammered! Talk about a last minute hookup. With the guys looking on from the beach I fought the fish to the boat as Jordan propelled us towards the safety of the shoreline. About 50 ft out we netted the laker “pup”. He went 8 lbs which is small for a laker, but still a nice trout and he sure turned my day around. We shot a quick clip of the release and prepped the boat for removal.

Once again, I thank Tom for his help. There is no way we would have fished if not for him. It was a fun ride out and I shot this clip of the ride. The boat came pretty close to going off the edge of the dam, but in the end all was well. With any luck, we will be back to the lake in one month for another round.

Jordan and I put 10 fish to the boat and the average size was 4.3 lbs. We averaged one fish for every 2.5 hours on the water. Pretty good numbers and it gives me high hopes for more winter fun at Crescent Lake in 2009.

Additional video clips from the trip:

-Jordan fighting his 4+ brown

-More ice footage

-More ice footage