Well it’s Christmas Eve and with our abnormal winter in the northland, it was bound to happen! We have been watching the brave souls that are tooo fish hungry, venturing out onto potentially thin ice! Well, it happened this morning! It rained here overnight(still raining now) and a hard sided fish house has gone through the ice! It was one of three on the bay where we live. First and foremost, in my opinion, I think they’re idiots! It has been unseasonably warm all winter so far. We just watched the owner walk out to it to survey his dilemma! It’s been all over the news! Use some common sense! Now his problem is, he has to wait for a good freeze for it to be safe and thereby make better ice which will turn his fish house into a giant block of ice! Hopefully no one will get harmed( or killed) with this fiasco! Sorry for venting about this dudes bad circumstances! Use your heads people!

I thought I would share with you some pixs of my favorite fish to chase, the Northern Pike. Many fishermen look down on them and many states F & G try to eradicate them. The state I live in, Idaho, actively gill nets them to near extermination in some lakes. They put a label on them here as an invasive species. But they are no more so than almost every other fish that swims in our waters. They are just a non-native fish just like all the Bass, Perch, Crappie, Sunfish, whitefish and most of the trout. The only native fish here are the Sturgeon. Bull trout and Squawfish, as well as the salmon runs in some parts of the state. Pike actually got to many waters here in N. Idaho by migrating down stream from Montana. Pike are native to parts of Montana, so I would call that natural expansion. It really ticks me off, they target one species as invasive only because they get paid to do a witch hunt on them. I have studied Pike habits and diet, and they do less harm to the ecosystem than Smallmouth Bass do by far, which we have millions of in this state, but no-one is saying we need to kill all of them. Anyway, getting off my soap box now, and thought I would share with you some pictures of my favorite fish to catch. These were all caught and released in the past 4 years or so. I have a lot more, but it won't let me upload any more than this.