Date: 1-19-15
Body of Water: Reeds Lake
Boat: None, ice fishing
With: Alone
Target: Perch and pike
Time: 8 AM – 1 PM
Conditions: Post-cold front, about 30 F +/- with NE winds < 10 mph. Cloudy and generally quiet with about 7 inches of slush-covered ice.
Local ice-fishing on MLK Day is something of a tradition of mine, since it's a day off with the kids in school. With no pike minnows on hand, and some mild concerns about the condition of the ice after a weekend thaw, I waited until light before venturing out. My plan was to catch a few easy perch and set some tip-ups for pike using the perch as bait. I chose to fish the south side of Reeds Lake since I knew there should be some perch there.
My first couple of holes showed no activity, and I decided to check some weed edges for bluegills early on. This would take advantage of the low-light conditions while also giving the perch some time to wake up. There was no evidence of anybody fishing the shallow weed-beds, and there proved to be no evidence of fish activity, either.
Once I started drilling holes in 23 feet or more, I started raising some fish activity near bottom on the graph. At first I was not sure I was marking fish, but it was certainly biological and responded to the descending jig. After some certain refusals and trying a few more holes, I down-sized to a tungsten teardrop and maggot and finally got a bite; I half expected a bluegill as it approached the hole, but it turned out to be another yellow perch.
Well, at least now I could set a tip-up! But somehow I managed to lose the perch before I could deploy it as bait. Fortunately the perch were waking up and soon I had perch suspended from traps, 3 to 5 feet off bottom in 15 and 23 feet of water.
These baits remained untouched for the rest of the session as I poked around for additional perch. I ended with a dozen or so, but all were small (bait-sized to small eaters.) All came on the tungsten pilkie (perch colored) with a colored maggot or two.
So the fishing was pretty poor, and the "best" biters were typically in about 30 feet of water. They were most likely to bite if I could tease them a few feet off the bottom, but a quality bite never developed for me. It looked like (and sounded like) slow going for others on the lake; there were no real indications of success.
Seeing my tear drop on bottom in 30 feet of water was no problem. It's certainly nice to know that any fish below my feet will show themselves, and I simply sensed many bites without actually feeling them. Some unknown sense in combination with their behavior on the graph initiates the "hook set." This will be a powerful combination.
What do I have to say about this? Probably not a whole lot; it wasn't exactly an exciting outing. But it was better than work, the graph is interesting, and MLK Day provided an opportunity to otherwise get out there at a time that ordinarily I'd have been unable to do so.
Local ice-fishing on MLK Day is something of a tradition of mine, since it's a day off with the kids in school. With no pike minnows on hand, and some mild concerns about the condition of the ice after a weekend thaw, I waited until light before venturing out. My plan was to catch a few easy perch and set some tip-ups for pike using the perch as bait. I chose to fish the south side of Reeds Lake since I knew there should be some perch there.
My first couple of holes showed no activity, and I decided to check some weed edges for bluegills early on. This would take advantage of the low-light conditions while also giving the perch some time to wake up. There was no evidence of anybody fishing the shallow weed-beds, and there proved to be no evidence of fish activity, either.
Once I started drilling holes in 23 feet or more, I started raising some fish activity near bottom on the graph. At first I was not sure I was marking fish, but it was certainly biological and responded to the descending jig. After some certain refusals and trying a few more holes, I down-sized to a tungsten teardrop and maggot and finally got a bite; I half expected a bluegill as it approached the hole, but it turned out to be another yellow perch.
Well, at least now I could set a tip-up! But somehow I managed to lose the perch before I could deploy it as bait. Fortunately the perch were waking up and soon I had perch suspended from traps, 3 to 5 feet off bottom in 15 and 23 feet of water.
These baits remained untouched for the rest of the session as I poked around for additional perch. I ended with a dozen or so, but all were small (bait-sized to small eaters.) All came on the tungsten pilkie (perch colored) with a colored maggot or two.
So the fishing was pretty poor, and the "best" biters were typically in about 30 feet of water. They were most likely to bite if I could tease them a few feet off the bottom, but a quality bite never developed for me. It looked like (and sounded like) slow going for others on the lake; there were no real indications of success.
Seeing my tear drop on bottom in 30 feet of water was no problem. It's certainly nice to know that any fish below my feet will show themselves, and I simply sensed many bites without actually feeling them. Some unknown sense in combination with their behavior on the graph initiates the "hook set." This will be a powerful combination.
What do I have to say about this? Probably not a whole lot; it wasn't exactly an exciting outing. But it was better than work, the graph is interesting, and MLK Day provided an opportunity to otherwise get out there at a time that ordinarily I'd have been unable to do so.
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