Ice Fishing in Central Iowa - December 24, 2016

After seeing the windy/rainy forecasts for Sunday and Monday, I decided to rearrange some plans in order to free up Saturday (24th) for icefishing, while the ice is still in good condition.

Visited one local pond, had 9" of good ice.  Caught a bunch o' fish....largemouth bass, bluegills, hybrid sunfish, and pumpkinseed sunfish.  First time I'd ever caught pumpkinseeds from this pond.

I tried a few different ice-lures, the most effective for this day seemed to be a Lindy Frostee Spoon tipped with a waxworm.

Pumpkinseeds:

Hybrid Sunfish:

2016 Flyfishing Summary

So, yeah....brrrrrr!   I don't think I'll be going flyfishing in the next couple weeks, so its a good time to summarize this past year's open-water efforts.  I feel it was a pretty good fishing year.  I fished some new-to-me lakes and streams again this year, but as usual MOST of my fishing was at various local public ponds.
I didn't keep an electronic fishing log this year, so I don't have all the facts, totals, and statistics that I have been able to share in each of the previous 10 years.

Here's what I do know, however:
-I set 18" bass as an arbitrary minimum size to track.  I landed 11 Largemouth Bass over 18" on flies.  This was 1 more than last year.  2 qualified as Master Angler size of 20" minimum.  Of these big bass, 5 were caught on a little microjig!  Most of the other ones were caught on topwater.
-I landed 1 Smallmouth Bass over 18".  First ever that big on a fly rod for me, even though my all-tackle best is 20".  The battle was VERY impressive!
-I landed two Master Angler-sized Redear Sunfish.  Minimum size on those is 11".  Biggest one was almost right at 12", but I couldn't lay the fish flat enough in my kayak to get a better measurement, so I just called it 11.75".  Digital scale said 1.45 lbs.  Beautiful fish!
-I caught one Master Angler-sized crappie at 14.5".  It would be just an average nice fish from some of our bigger lakes/reservoirs, but its a heckuva nice crappie from our public ponds!
-I caught several 9"+ Master Angler-sized Pumpkinseed Sunfish.  Biggest measured 9.5".
-Caught at least 16 species on flies this year, all in Iowa.  Not quite as many as in some years, but not too shabby.
-Caught Flyrod Personal Bests for 4 species....Smallmouth Bass, Redear Sunfish, Black Crappie, and Pumpkinseed Sunfish.
-Hooked at least 3 (if not more) Grass Carp on flies this year.  Didn't manage to land ANY of them.

Again, I didn't keep an electronic Fishing Log, so unlike past years I don't know what my fish total for the year was, or how many days I fished.  I enjoyed it all the same, and I'm pleased with the results.
Hope you've enjoyed your fishing in 2016 as well. :)