Now to hurry to my favorite night time fishing spot. I hope I packed everything. After stopping for a quick fast-food dinner, 45 minutes later I arrived at the parking spot,. There were 6 cars and I could see lights out on the frozen lake. I unpacked all my gear into the portable, one-man ice shanty and started down to the lake. Gee, the rest of the shanties were only out about 20-30 yards from shore. The snow on top of the ice made it a little soft and it did firm up as I walked out. It was dark and I started my lantern. Next I started to fire up my gas ice auger. Somebody shouted at me "the ice is only 2 1/2" thick , use my hand auger". Great, I borrowed their auger and zipped right through the two holes. It had 5" of water on top. As I was setting up, I knocked over the Coleman single mantle gas lantern. It almost started a fire and then went out. It wouldn't run. Darn, it is dark. I used my small flashlight to set the fish finder in the hole and lowered the night light 15 feet down the hole.
Next, I baited up one rod with two hooks and got out the wax worms. I pulled the top of the shanty down.
I could just barely see my rod tip from the light off of the fish finder. I am going to try it.
Bang! A bite in just 3 minutes of fishing.
These little smelt were caught on wax worms. I started catching a couple when I put the bait down to where I could see the smelt on the fish finder. They were at about 25 feet in 30 foot of water. I would watch the bait descend and stop it right above the fish on the fish finder and bang.
It was really dark inside the shanty without my lantern. I fished for two hours and missed a lot of bites.
I saved a couple smelt to use on the tipup tomorrow and cleaned the rest. I will have to get a light before I go out for smelt again and I need more smelt to make a meal. I have a plan to re-wire a shop clamp-on light with a RV bulb to my 12V trolling battery. I'll let you know how that idea works next time.
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