Bought a new Ice house after last weekends debacle. It is a new Fish Trap X2 with the cushion seats so after assembling it I decided that I needed to take it out on the ice. The weather could not have possibly been better 35 degrees with a slight wind. After much debate I decided to go to a lake that I had fished before and target some crappies and maybe a walleye, because I ended up bringing my buddy and his girlfriend (who doesnt fish) so I thought I would try my best to put them on some fish.
We got to the lake at about 12:30pm and set up the shack, lots of people were on the lake due to the nice weather. I decided to try a spot that I had never fished before but always felt would be a good spot, problem was so did several other people. We set up in about 18ft of water on a drop off into a 36ft basin I figured I could pick off a couple panfish and might have the luck of getting a walleye moving into the shallows to feed. Here is a look at the spot...
Maybe it was the time of day or just the amount of people fishing near us but I had a very tough time even marking any fish on the vexilar, so after about an hour I decided it was best to pack up and try a new spot. We drove to a very small basin that was surrounded with some shallow points and bump trying to locate some fish, the move proved to be a good idea and we spent the rest of the evening there. Here is a look at the basin...
We imediately started marking and catching fish. Most turned out to be small crappies and the bait of choice seemed to be a small horizontal jig (Little Atom Optic Stealth) tipped with a red and white eurolarva or plastics (Little Atom Nuggies) most fish were suspended at about 20ft. fish sizes averaged from 6-9inches. At one point I looked down the hole next to me and seen a HUGE musky in the barred phase suspended about 2 inches beneath the ice. I could only assume that he had been eating smaller fish that we let go that where having a difficult time surviving. As soon as the musky left fishing became difficult, All the crappies we caught at that point were hugging the bottom of the basin and we had to work to get them to move up the water colum. As time past and the sun began to drop we marked fewer fish but the average size seemed to increase. We caught fish on Flutter Jigs, Jigging Spoons, and Horizontal Jigs here is a couple pics...
Overall it was a much better weekend than last and I really enjoyed using the new ice shack. I already have a trip planned next weekend up north possibly to chase some perch on lake Mille Lacs, I will try to post a report on the results
~Craig
