Thank you, Crappie Gods!

I've been reading Joedog's ice fishing adventures over on the Missouri board, envious of all the crappie he's been catching. I had hopes of fishing with 870 today but he got called in to work ahead of the storm that's coming our way and I ended up going alone. I got on the ice about 10 and drilled a series of holes in some deep water, expecting to hole hop around, hoping for some crappie and perch. Here is what it looked like as I got started. You can see my holes in the background, with a few more off to the right out of the frame. Beautiful day to be fishing, 23 degrees with zero wind.



Dropped the sonar in the first hole and had a mark up off the bottom 3-4', a good sign for maybe a crappie.
1st drop, 1st hole:

1st 7 drops, 1st hole:


That's 6 crappie and a perch.



My day was already made at this point but that first hole would continue to produce.


Happy boy I was with all those crappie on the snow in about a half hour. Maybe less. The hole finally ran dry and I moved to the next one but couldn't mark a fish there at all. Moved to the 3rd hole and that's where I'd finish out my day.



I had to leave them biting shortly after this picture as my 5 gallon bucket was nearly full and they were flopping out the top! Total would be 20 crappies and 6 perch for a bit less than 2 hours on the ice. I'd get one more after I snapped this pic; as I was scooping them into the bucket another mark showed up on the graph and I couldn't resist the "just one more cast" syndrome and another crappie joined the rest...what a day!