Early 2013 Ice Fishing - Trip #2

Ice-fished some brushpiles on a local reservoir on Saturday, January 5th.  My buddy Jay joined me, as well as our friend Chris and his son Nathan, and another friend Jim.  The ice was 9" of  solid, clear ice, with just a dusting of snow on top in most places, and bare ice on the rest.

A Conservation Officer checked up on us, which was nice to see.  He visited for awhile, hoping to see us catch something.  We'd fished for over an hour before he arrived, and drilled plenty of holes over several brushpiles, but hadn't even SEEN a fish yet!  I finally caught a Largemouth Bass before the Officer left us.

Jim was the last to arrive, soon after the Officer left, and located a brushpile that hadn't been fished yet this season (no old holes over the top of it), and he started catching fish.  He called us over.  He caught more fish. I caught a few Crappies up to 11", another bass, and a bluegill  here.  Then the action died.

Black Crappie

White Crappie

We drilled more holes around that brushpile, but no more fish were located.  Eventually, Jim, Chris and Nathan left.

Jay  covered a large area with his electronics, and located another brushpile that hadn't been fished yet.  We were on fish immediately.  I caught another crappie or two, a couple more bass, and lost a nicer bass just under the ice when it tangled in my transducer cable.  The action here ended abruptly, just after both Jay and I had some huge 18"-2' of solid red (fish) show up, then disappear.  Whatever it was spooked the other fish away.  We couldn't find a single fish after that.

It was odd how few fish were on these brushpiles.  Last ice-season, the fish were stacked on them.

I used only jigging spoons tipped with ice-fishing plastics (no live bait), and ended up with 7 Crappies in all, plus the 4 Largemouth Bass and 1 Bluegill.  It was fun, but considering how much time we spent, the catching rate was not good at all.

New Year's Day - 2013

Last weekend, I could have gone ice-fishing.  I had the time, my gear was ready...I just simply chose not to. Very weird!

But I did go ice-fishing yesterday (New Year's Day).  I visited a public pond in town that I had not ice-fished before.  I had fly-fished it during open water, and thought I knew where the fish would be holding.  I was wrong.  Since I marked no fish at the first 5 spots I tried (4'-7' deep), I decided the fish must be in the deeper water.

Turned out the fish were scattered in small groups or singles, and constantly on the move.  They were in 10'-14' of water.

I drew a nice fish in using a jigging spoon, but it just followed the spoon up and down without striking.  I switched to a tungsten jig tipped with a Gulp! Waxworm.  Live waxworms and maggots are great ice-fishing bait, but over the last couple of years, I've determined to weed myself off the crutch of using live bait, even during ice-fishing.  I've discovered live bait isn't necessary, even during the tough conditions of winter.

I fished about 4.5 hours, and most of the time was spent waiting for the next group of fish to show up.  If they didn't show up for 10-15 minutes, I would move to another location.  I ended up landing at least 14 Bluegills (biggest I measured was a fat 8-incher, and all were really close to that length).

I also caught one crappie, which was cool, because I'd just caught one crappie during the open-water season here...and supposedly they were never stocked here.  I also caught a largemouth bass of about 12", and lost another just below the hole that looked considerably larger.

I discovered that releasing a fish back into the hole would immediately make the small group of fish beneath my ice-hole disappear.  I could NEVER catch more than one fish from any group of fish.  So, one time I tried just putting the landed fish on the ice until the group moved away, to see if it made a difference.  That time, I caught about 6 fish from the group before it moved on.

There were a LOT of Canadian Geese flying around most of the morning!

Also, the ice was a very safe 7" thick everywhere I measured.  Air temp started out in the morning at around 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and was supposed to reach 17 degrees F (I never checked to verify that).