hello fisherman,

sorry it took me so long to get this out.

we were up last week (jan 14-17), after hearing some scary slush reports from the folks in I-falls and Fort we were pleasantly surprised thursday morning. we woke up to near -30 temps, so we waited til' near sunset to head out; it seems neither myself nor my Dad can sleep when we get the chance to fish Lakers. Nonetheless, at our first spot we iced 5 lakers, including one giant, rough measure put her at 38" maybe 16-18 pounds, thanks to Robin for the assist. check out www.thornebros.com for the pic, and yes it was landed on a Thorne bros. trout rod rigged with a tube. over the course of 3 days we caught nearly forty tout, i caught 15 saturday! average was about 5 pounds! most of the fish we caught 12-25 feet down over 20-50 feet of water. one day i never dropped my tube more than 18 feet. SLUSH, gone! it was my conclusion that Crow Lake had been a mess a couple weeks ago but the super-cold temps froze all the slush. we were able to travel anywhere we wanted on a blanket of powder that felt like riding on air. we fished from 7 am to 5 pm for three days, even in -40 temps, late morning was definitely the best (8-11) but generally caught fish all day, at every spot, fresh spots were better than "used" spots.

thanks again to Paul, Chris, Jake, Ashley for the help and great cooking.

judd