I'm not going to complain about having a warm winter. It has made my life easier and more comfortable in most areas. Less shoveling and roof raking. The furnace doesn't have to run as much. Driving is safer. Getting the kids ready to go somewhere is less of a hassle. The only downside, as far as I'm concerned, is that it puts the kibosh on ice fishing. I had pretty much written the season off when after a few cold days my friend John asked me if I wanted to give it a shot. We weren't positive that we had enough ice, but we were both ready to give it a go. I threw my stuff together and we headed out the next morning.
We were surprised to find that we had 5-inches of good solid ice. We spread our tip-ups along two different shores and then went after panfish. It wasn't a fast bite at first, but we found some perch and a huge school of bluegills. They pretty much filled the water column in 20-feet of water. We caught one after another, taking breaks because our hands were cold. John had a lunch engagement to get to, so he took off sometime around noon. I stuck it out. I got a flag not too long after he left. Unfortunately, I was out of practice and screwed things up. The line was running steadily off of the spool when I got to the hole. I grabbed the line, set the hook, and then let it slip out of my hands. Son-of-a-mother! The fish was still there when I picked it back up. It felt heavy and was making some nice runs. It eventually made a run straight at me. I tried to keep up, but couldn't. When I was able to take up the slack, I felt the weight of the fish one more time and then the hook popped out. That'll make any fisherman crazy, and I did go crazy for about 3 seconds before remembering that I was surrounded by houses with big bay windows facing the lake. I was so bothered by it that I decided to take the next day off of work and go back out.
It turned out to be kind of a crazy day to be on the ice. It rained sideways all day long with big wind gusts. My rain gear held up to it, so I stayed warm and comfortable. I caught quite a few panfish throughout the course of the day, but they were a little skiddish. I couldn't get more than 2 or 3 out of one hole before they shut down and quit biting. I was moving all day. The flags stayed down until an hour or 2 before dark. I caught a pike in the mid 20's, and then caught a second pike that same size on the same tip-up.
Hayden has been asking about going ice skating ever since she skated with her cousins and aunts and uncles the Christmas before last. Luke has started to show some interest, as well. Thinking that it would be great for them to have something to do on the ice while I fish, I decided to pick up some used skates for them. We made plans to head back to the lake on Saturday. John and his youngest daughter, and Josh and the boys were going to come along. My boys were so excited about it that they got up at 4:30 in the morning. I heard Hayden a little while later, so I went ahead and dragged out of bed. It was impossible to keep them quiet while we got ready. The anticipation of the fun day ahead had them bouncing around, talking way too loud, and making all kinds of noise. Lincoln even disappeared once and I found him crawling into bed with his mother. I kept waiting for Michelle to come out and snap at us, but she later said that she never heard a thing.
With the kids all bundled up, we headed up 131 in a snow storm. We saw a few cars in the ditch. Conditions weren't exactly ideal for taking kids out on a frozen lake. The snow was coming down in mounds, and like the rain had been, it was coming in sideways with huge wind gusts. Josh came with skates instead of ice fishing gear, so he shoveled the rink and skated with the kids. They all had the time of their lives. Lincoln wasn't too interested in the skating yet, so he tagged along with me. It took forever to get my tip-ups set. Between getting the kids' skates on, keeping Lincoln happy, and frantically getting the minnows back in water after he tripped over them, I just couldn't get even 5 uninterrupted minutes. John and his daughter had put a few perch on the ice, but she got cold and he graciously decided that they'd better take off. The skaters decided to head out at about the same time. I think that the weather was just too rough. Josh and Keri let Hayden and Luke come over for the afternoon and Grandma Ike came down and asked Licoln to come inside with her and Grandpa. I found myself alone on the ice with a lot of fishing ahead of me.
Luckily, the wind settled just a little bit and the snow moved on. I caught a couple of keeper size bass not too long after everyone left. The biggest was probably about 16-inches. No more flags would pop for the rest of the day. I dinked around with the panfish until almost dark and decided I'd better head home. As I picked up my tip-ups, I was finding that some of the flags were frozen to the ice. I wondered if any of them had a fish on, but just weren't able to pop up. Sure enough, I saw the spindle turn just a little bit as I approached one. I picked it up and set the hook on a pretty heavy fish. It didn't make too many runs and more or less came right in. It was a 35-inch pike. I wonder how long he had been on there. I was lucky that he was just hooked in the corner of his mouth. I got my picture and released him healthy.
The warm trend has continued and I knew that it would never hold out for the next weekend, so I took a couple of days off to go while I still could. When I got out there, I found that we were down to about 4-inches with a lot of water on the ice. I still felt pretty safe. After dropping my tip-ups, I started to set up my new shanty. A flag popped on the tip-up that wasn't 15 yards away. When I looked into the hole to see if the spool was spinning, I found a 30-inch pike practically staring back at me. He was right under the ice. He apparently wasn't worried about all the noise I had been making with the shanty or the clicking of my spikes on the smooth ice. I grabbed the line and pulled the minnow back up near him. I then backed up a little so that he couldn't see me. He hung around for quite awhile, but never bothered with the minnow again. He seemed to be in a pretty neutral mood and had just nipped at the minnow out of habit. Makes me wonder how many false flags really were pike. I got one more flag later in the day. It was making some good runs and I was pretty sure that it was a pike. Turned out to be a 23-inch bass. It was barely hooked. Not a 40-inch pike, but you can't complain about a bass that big.
I was a little more nervous heading to the ice on day two because I knew how warm it had been the day before. Luckily, it had been below freezing at night and the ice seemed pretty solid from top to bottom. I was down to between 3 and 3 1/2 inches. It was definitely creepy and I walked slowly and deliberately all day. I stepped light and kept my ears perked for any cracking sounds. The perch weren't doing much, but I found the gills and caught plenty of them. I was getting more nervous as the day went on, especially after the sun came out and it started feeling warmer. The top of the ice started turning a little slushy, which meant that it was now added weight instead of support.
A flag finally went up at about 2:00. With the hair standing on the back of my neck, I stepped cautiously across the deep water to get to the tip-up. When I got there, the line was just flying off of the spool. I hurried to get my hands on it for fear that it would take all of the line. I set the hook immediately and found a pretty nice fish on the other end of the line. After it had made its runs, I pulled it through the paper thin hole. Another 35-incher. Almost worth the risk.
After the picture and release, I decided that I'd better get off of the deep water before I ended up regretting it. I messed around trying to catch panfish over 4 feet of water for a couple of hours. Not too many pannies that shallow. I got one more flag. The fish had run out quite a bit of line, but was gone by the time that I made it there after skirting around the edge of the lake. With the sun no longer beating down on the ice, I snuck back out to my gill hole. I caught 10 or 15 nice ones before deciding that I had pushed my luck long enough. Picking up my tip-ups in the dark wasn't real fun. I felt some relief when I finally dropped my last one into the bucket and got ready to take the short walk back to land. My relief was a bit premature. I went through about 6 feet from shore. I only went in to my knees and my waterproof boots and pants kept me pretty dry. My sled almost went in with all of my stuff in it, but I grabbed it in time.
I guess I'm going to have to be done until we get back up to at least 4-inches. There's no guarantee that we will, but I sure hope we do. I feel like I'm just getting started. Still waiting to pull that 45-incher through the ice.
