Had to work for them yesterday

I thought the hard water season might have been over after the warm temps on Wednesday and Thursday and quite a bit of rain overnight Thursday into Friday. Then the bottom fell out of the thermometer mid morning on Friday and hasn't been above freezing since. I headed out on Saturday morning, hoping to find safe ice and lo and behold, my chosen spot still had a solid 10" of good ice, some spots still had 12!
I headed out to the deepest part of the basin, since I've had very limited results in shallow. I'd like to do more catch and release fishing in say, 20' or less of water but I'm not finding the fish there. I'll bet they are there but I haven't figured out that system yet. Didn't take me long to locate some marks and drop down to them but they were pretty tight lipped and I had to work them carefully. These 3 came from right on the bottom; I sure was happy to see the crappie come up to the hole.





Alas, those would be the only crappie of the day and the last picture as it began to snow pretty good shortly after. I ended up with a total of 7 good perch and the 2 crappie.

Turned some of them in to dinner tonight, "baked parmesan" style for my daughter and I. It has become a family favorite way to prepare them.



We did them in!



I may have another trip or 2 before the season ends but some warm weather is on tap for the next couple of days and with the sun getting stronger every day, the ice gets punky pretty fast and I'm not so dedicated that I'm going to take stupid chances to get one more trip in.