Slow Day At Shellcamp
I managed to sneak up to Shellcamp Pond in Gilmanton
over the weekend. Though the fishing was pretty slow, I did get two pickerel…and a funny and embarrassing story.
I got to the lake around 9:15 am. After drilling some holes through the mind bogglingly solid 2 feet of ice (gets old quick when all you have is a hand auger) and setting up about three of my 5 tip ups, a flag goes up! I run over, and pull in a smallish Chain Pickerel success! After that, the day was slow. One flag did go up twice, but no solid hookups were had. I almost pulled in a beefy something toward the middle of the day, but whatever it was (probably a medium size pickerel) it spit the hook just as I was getting it toward the surface, bummer. With the day was winding down and my bait supply depleted, I began to pull in the tip-ups with dead bait, and relocated one that still had live bait. While I was going through my stuff, I heard this strange “knock, knock, knock†behind me. I turn around, and my tip-up is shaking, but the flag won’t deploy….odd. Anyhow, I pull the tip-up out, and land my second pickerel. Upon further inspection, It appears that I had rigged the tip-up reel the wrong way, meaning that the flag wire was being pushed to the wrong side, and thus would not deploy. Who knows how many fish were on the end of the line throughout the day…