Two days of ice fishing

[slabby joe]

I have been dock fishing the last few weeks at Pomona and fishing through the ice in the slips, it's been fun but the bite has slowed down alot in the last week so I was glad to have some safe ice on the lakes to try. HD was first on the list last Wed. for Lee, Jeff and I and we went to Maryville to fish a brushpile west of the ramp ( info. from Doug Boyt that a friend of his had been catching keepers there) only to find 3 other guys already there so we went out towards the main body and found a few small crappies but decided to go up above the little bull bridge. No one else had been there so we had our pick of places to try based on previous years hot spots......and we did catch a fair number of fish but mostly small ones. Now Jeff had 4 keepers laying on the ice and he left them to go up the channel to try more trees and as he headed back he noticed a blue heron standing where he'd left the fish and as he got closer the bird squawked at him and took off.......and all 4 crappies were gone ....you gotta have a sense of humor ....Jeff was given the bird....what a way to end the day! Thursday Jeff and I tried Louisburg-Middlecreek and it had already been fished with evidence of a number of froze over holes and over 30 small crappie just thrown out on the ice what a waste...don't know what the dufusses were thinking that did this. Anyway we drilled holes and started catching fish right away and 3 were keepers with one almost 14in.....gonna be a great day........well the little fish were plentiful for awhile that is and then a long lull with lots of lure changing, adding nibbles and wax worms and nothing seemed to help. We stayed long enough for some other friends to show up and we shared our fish catching info. and they gave us some beer...a fair trade I must say. Most of our fish were caught on hair jigs and small spoons, using ice rods with spring bobbers. Lookin like ice fishing is over for awhile so I'm grateful for the 2 days on hard water Sorry for the double pic.....I guess you can't have too many pics. of cold ones!