Ice fishing, Wolf hunting and Bass fishing

It seems like I always feel the need to apologize whenever I put up a new post on here because it always seems to take me so long to get around to doing it!  Life's busy and I guess that beats the alternative!  
Since the start of the New Year it's been a hectic couple of months.  I spent the first few weeks of January guiding wolf hunters then hit the road to Florida for the first FLW Tour event of the year at Lake Okeechobee.   I've been home now for a couple weeks and have been spending quite a bit of time on the ice catching some fish, mostly walleyes since I like eating them so much!  

Bernie Stoecker was a successful wolf hunter!  The action was really good this year overall.  There were a bunch of sightings but unfortunately not all of them turned into tags getting punched.  Still it was a fun few weeks!  Already looking forward to next year.  
If anybody has any interest in a wolf hunt next year send along a note, let me know and we can go from there.  The wolf numbers are great across the Sunset Country Region right now so it's a good time to come!  

After wrapping up the wolf hunting it was time to hit the road to Florida.  I usually try to get down there to fun fish for a week or so before the practice starts for our first tournament because I want to break in my new boat and just get fishing again.  It's nice to get a little break from winter and heck, I hadn't caught a bass since October so I had to get back in the zone!  Typically the first stop every year when I get to Florida is at the car wash so I can clean all the salt off my rig from up north!

I like to fish a variety of lakes down there and do a little bit of everything as far as playing around with different fishing techniques.  I've been going down to Florida for five years now doing this so I have sampled quite a few different lakes now, its a lot of fun.  It's amazing how much they can change from year to year because of water levels, vegetation growth, etc.  

My buddy from home Sean McAughey made the big drive down to Florida with me and spent a few days fishing.  Here he is with the biggest fish of the trip for us.  A six pounder from Lake Toho. 

I had another friend come down to fish for a couple days just before the practice started on Okeechobee.  Mike Richards plays for the Washington Capitals and had a few days off because of the NHL Allstar Game Weekend.  We had a great couple days!

The tournemant at Okeechobee went great!  Well, compared to my tournaments in Florida over the past few years!  I ended up with a 34th place finish that earned me $10,000!  So I was happy.  I was fortunate to stay at my friend Brandon McMillan's place for this event along with my other Canadian buddies Chris and Cory Johnston.  We all did well in the tournament and between the four of us we won a total of $63,000!  Pretty awesome!  It was a fun week. 

My best bait of the week was a 4" Jackall Sasuteki Craw rigged up on a 3/4 oz tungsten sinker.  I fished it on a G. Loomis IMX 954C Flippin Stick paired up with a Shimano Chronarch CI4 reel and some 65 lb. Power Pro braided line. 

Since I've been home I've been eating good...
I'll try to be a little quicker on the next update!