First ice trip of the winter

[no1son]

My partner and I hit the ice about 3:15 this afternoon on a small interior Twin Cities Metro lake.

We cut three holes and then the Kluge adapter we had between the 18v drill and the 6" hand Strikemaster failed when the chuck came loose. The safety crossbar popped right off the adapter and the cutter portion went to the bottom of the lake. (So did the safety bar and the failed washer that was supposed to hold it, before I cooled off a bit.)

Well we just fished the three holes we had until we knocked off about 5:00. One at about 6', one at just over 7' and one about 9'. Ice was clean and crystal clear running about 8-10" thick under the light snow cover. Nobody else had been on that lake that we could see, not fishermen anyway. Temp was right about 20 degrees, no wind and very light snow. No other holes to be seen at all.

We could see activity on the bottom, likely perch, but they would not come up after anything and we soon found out why. Pike.



26" -took a #10 jig tipped with a waxie. We hadn't even had the lines in the water 20 minutes.

We proceeded to catch another, that one on a #12 Fatboy also tipped with a waxie and about half a dozen perch that we eventually coaxed off the bottom, all of them also on a waxie tipping a tiny jig. Most fish came out of the 7' depth with a couple of perch at 9'. Those were part of a stepped drop off that eventually makes 14 to 15'. Last year we had fish all up and down the steps depending on the outing.




A little smaller at just under 24".

From time to time a heavy red mark would come through, more pike; they were on the move this afternoon, which kept the perch buried in the bottom. I think we did okay to even take the few we did, but the pike were the bonus excitement. The first one pretty much filled up the hole once I got her worn down and could get the head started. Everything released to fight another day.

I did not take out an inline reel this afternoon, only my UL spinning reels; but that was probably for the best considering the oversized fish we took (everything was on noodle tipped rods; so the pike were beaten by drags we knew and trusted).

The fishing was good, but boy was the outing expensive. The Kluge adapter was on its fourth year, and had given faithful performance up until this afternoon. It kinda bites when your safety feature fails, but I intend to get another one. The adapter is $45 and I will need another hand auger on top of it!