Jasper's Cup Runneth Over

January ushers in a new year of exhausting efforts to pin down a few personal bests.  You work all week, you're beat down, Saturday morning you're up at 3 am, Sunday morning you're up at 4 am and Monday you're back to work.  Press replay, it's Saturday again, you haven't caught up on sleep a bit but you dig deep, wet the lines and hate yourself for the first three hours of the day.  It's 2013, I'm 32 and while I may feel it more than I did at 21, I still haven't learned my lesson. 

There is a man from Newburgh, ME that has come down with the Pike fever; whether iced over or stacked up with white caps, he forges forth on Pike waters seeking the toothy beasts.  Saturday has become our day over the past two seasons to break bread on the ice and his numbers are headed in the right direction.

2nd Personal Best of the Season:

18lbs & 41" That'll Do



Each of his personal bests have been by 5 lbs this season.  It all began with a 13lb fish earlier in the season which wiped the floor on an 8lb fish from last season.  Yet here we stand with an 18lb fish, 5 lbs larger yet again.  23lbs next?

When a fish of this magnitude hits the ice, you enjoy an old Maine favorite.

You proceed to bleed profusely (wouldn't stop) from the encounter with the 18lb beast.

Then you ice the cake with a 15.5lb 36" fish

Serious numbers were put up this weekend, with many fish over 11lbs coming to hand.  After a day of guiding yesterday we stand at 227lbs landed and released.  This is an increase of 176lbs over the same amount of days on the ice last season....loving every exhausting minute of it.