This past weekend, I ventured north for my annual "Covance Ice Fishing Trip". About six years ago, when I worked at Covance, a bunch of us started going ice fishing every January. We've gone to different places, but we usually end up at someone's cabin in northern Wisconsin or the UP. There could be an entire blog dedicated to my experiences on these trips! Even after most of us left Covance, we've still managed to keep up with our annual get together. This year Kerl (Richard is his first name) invited Andy, Terry and I up to his cabin outside of Ladysmith. Kerl and I left Madison on Friday afternoon and made it to his cabin about 4 hours later. Kerl had been up there the weekend before when the temperature was a balmy 40 degrees. He was actually worried that we wouldn't make it up the driveway because of the damage that he made the weekend before. On our second attempt , Kerl "baja'd" the Toyota through the frozen ruts and up to his cabin. The short trip up the driveway, may have been the most fun I've had in a long time. The icing on the cake was Kerl screaming "TOYOTA!!!" the entire time. We knew it was going to be a cold weekend, however the -5 degree temperature inside the cabin was a little ridiculous. It was actually warmer outside of the cabin as opposed to inside. Kerl and I worked quickly to get things taken care of before the sun went down (not to mention, to stay warm!). While he started the fire, I began clearing the snow away from the entrances and bringing our gear inside. It wasn't too long before Andy and Terry came rumbling up the driveway. The beer and liquor started to flow as everyone worked to put their stuff away. We ended up staying up until 4:00 am having our fun. The next morning we were all a little "slow" and it was cold!! Andy thought it would be a great idea to sleep on the floor with only a quilt. Needless to say he was frozen in the morning. The funniest thing was that Kerl had an electric blanket and an extra sleeping bag that Andy could have used. Very amusing to say the least. While it was cold, 12 degress, it was sunny and there was no wind. It was a beautiful day. We finally made it on the ice by 9:30 and starting setting up tip ups. We got our first flag within minutes of setting up our tip ups when I was able to ice a 24" northern. It was my first fish caught on a tip up. We thought that the early flag was a good sign. While the tip ups were set, Terry and I decided to try jigging for pan fish. We were able to get into some crappies using Terry's flasher. The bite was very light, but the crappies were nice size. Kerl even got into a few catching three crappie in about twenty minutes. At around 4:30, Andy was able to pull a 34" muskie through the ice. That was the end of our action for the day and we packed up and went back to the cabin. We were all pretty worn out from the night before and a full day of fishing so it was a quick dinner and we were all in bed by 9:30. The next morning we all go up early to pack up our stuff and clean up the cabin. We decided to head over to the Dairyland Flowage closer to Ladysmith to set some tip ups for walleye. The skies were still clear/sunny, but the wind had picked up which made it almost unbearably cold. We only lasted for two hours and never had a flag. Kerl and I packed up quickly, hit Subway for lunch and were on our way home. Overall it was a fun weekend. We caught enough fish to keep us entertained and had fun hanging out in the cabin. Can't wait until next year.
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