New Year's Eve On Ice

I spent a long day on the ice yesterday.  I was joined by my nephew, my brother-in-law, and a couple of his work buddies.  My dad even made a brief cameo.  We fished on a small private lake that has huge pike, but maybe not very many of them, and a nice population of healthy crappies, perch, bluegills, and largemouth bass.

We set out about ten tip-ups and then settled in to catch some panfish.  It took no time before we were into them.  I did okay with my waxworms on teardrops.  The other guys did much better with a basic split shot, small hook, and live minnow.  They helped me re-think ice fishing.  I'm all about jigging waxies.  They got their minnow close to the bottom and let it do the work.  They didn't touch their poles until they got the big bend of a perch.  We caught around 30 perch.  Most of them were decent in the 7-10 inch range with one whopper that was a little over 12 inches.  We all let out a big "Wow!"  when it came through the ice.  We also happened across a couple of nice handsized gills.

Overall, the tip-ups were a disappointment.  They were set all over the lake for a good 8 hours.  We didn't catch a single pike.  We had about a 20 minute span when the flags started popping.  They were all bass.  Some dropped the minnow before we could get to it, but we managed to pull in a 15-incher and two 18-inchers.  All of them were big, healthy looking bass.

My 5 year old nephew had a great time and hung in there like a champ.  He stayed out for a good 6 hours and loved every minute of it.  The guys were good about calling him over and handing him a pole when they got a fish on.  He also enjoyed messing around with the fish on the ice and getting his picture taken with them.  He talked about fish dinners all day, but when it came time to clean them his heart got a little soft.  He briefly felt sorry for the fish and as he watched the knife stick into the first victim he said, "That looks like it hurts."  Before long he was asking to keep the fish tails and telling his dad which night he wanted to have his fish dinner.

Pretty good day on the hard water.  Enough so that when I got home I told my wife that I wish I was going again today.  No dice.  She's at school working on grades and lesson plans and I'm on kid duty.  I have my gear neatly set around the basement to thaw and dry out for the next trip.  We're thinking of hitting another bigger private lake that has a better population of pike.  The panfish are fine, but a great day on the ice is only qualified by a lot of flags and some nice Northerns.  Looking forward to giving it another go.