I’ll try to keep this reasonably short, but I’ll likely ramble. I told steve a couple years ago that a lake trout through the ice was one of my last “bucket list” ice fish that I’d like to chase. We’ve talked about a trip over the years but never went for it. Fast forward to a month ago, and I told Steve, Nate, and a couple others that I planned to head north in search of lakers. No one could get the time off besides Steve, and he was semi apprehensive but he decided to join anyway. I won’t name the lake, but it’s in the northern lower peninsula, and there isn’t a whole lot of info on any forums, FB groups or otherwise. That either meant the fishing sucked, or locals kept it a secret. We got the motel booked, and rolled up Sunday morning as soon as I was off work and dealt with shitty road conditions the first hour due to snow. We got to the lake around 3 after a few bait shop pit stops. The snow forecast was calling for 3-5” up there, but wasn’t even close to being accurate. Over 20” of snow on the ground, with drifts being even deeper pushing 3-4’ in spots. Wind was gusting over 40, and was sustained at 20. We geared up and started walking, and after 50 yards we were cussing. Slushed pockets over our knees and windchill well below 0°. We made it a 1/4 mile, said fuck it and setup in 50 FOW. Lots of weeds and dink perch, marked MAYBE 1 laker between 3:30 and 6:30. Miserable. Went back to the truck, bounced around to find dinner then to the motel. We decided to sleep in, and hope to find better access and local intel. After some emailing, phone calls and making an hour round trip drive to a bait shop we made a plan. We got private access, that allowed us to get to our desired depth (100 FOW) with only walking 350 yards and have protection from the wind. We had high hopes, plenty of beers and burgers/brats to make. We got the shanty setup easy, snowed in with the heater rolling by 12:30. I got inside, dropped a 4.5” custom dipped tube and started jigging. I didn’t even have time to adjust my live scope settings when I saw a fish flying in. I started to reel up and BAM, fish on. We cleared Steve’s line, both transducers and the fight was on. Took 5 min and I got our first laker topside, and it was a damn nice one for inland waters. 29 3/4”. We were hootin and hollerin, high fives and all that. We couldn’t believe it. Around 3 we decided to get the grill fired up to make late lunch, and no sooner-another fish. Steve stuck it, and we brought our second fish topside. Again, super fired up and couldn’t believe we did it. Steve ended up landing a limit (3 fish) with the biggest at 31”, smallest 26”. I lost another one, but I didn’t mind. We marked a dozen other fish that we would work up to 50’ off the bottom but wouldn’t ever commit. We had a great time, and I’m already ready to go back again. Never be afraid to try something new, even if you have no fuggin idea of what you’re doing. Long winded, but we had a blast despite several set backs.
Biggest saugeye of the day is pictured, obviously missed a couple meals. 
