Burntside Bash 2005
The Burntside Bash has become one of the most looked forward to events on the I.C.E. Series contest trail by many people. It's not too hard to figure out why. Burntside Lake is one of the few vehicle accessible lake trout lakes in the state of Minnesota and is conveniently located outside of Ely. This was my first year attending the Bash and it was plenty of fun.
My brother and I teamed up to fish the elusive lake trout during the bash and Burntside's lakers would not disappoint. We augered a series of holes across a bay amongst some islands and holehopped with our electronics looking for signs of life below.
It took a good hour before my brother connected with his 1st fish. He was rip jigging a white tube jig from 60+ feet of water when something smacked his lure hard and it was gone. Dissappointment set in for him but I told him to keep jigging but slow the presentation down a little. Lake trout have the habit of flying in and smacking there prey to shock them, they then turn around and come back for it. Well, thats exactly what Mike's laker did. Not more than 10 seconds after his 'miss', he had the fish on. A short fight commenced and he proceeded to ice his 1st lake trout, a very nice 4 pounder.
