Saturday 01/11 & Sunday 01/19

[Joedog]

After a week of sub-freezing weather (much of which was single digits) I got out on the ice at Smithville. Took me a few stops to find an accessible place with safe ice that I thought would be worth fishing, but eventually did. It was more a scouting mission than anything...but I brought the auger and the livescope just in case. Turns out I found 3+ inches of clear ice above pods of fish. Had to drop a line. Nice looking dots on the screen.

Didn't take long before catching a ~16" white bass whose size belied the size of the dot on the screen.





Second fish was a much smaller white bass. Then started in on the crappie.





This one was about 11". Everything was going back in the water. This was just a scouting mission, after all.

Ended up catching one more big ol' white bass about the same size as the first one, and a couple more crappie. As I was throwing back the fourth or fifth decent size crappie, I was thinking, "I should be keeping these!!" But...didn't bring anything to put them in and I was committed to C&R this day. Plus I was about ready to go. Got one or two more and left the ice.

Had to travel out of town for work the whole next week, so didn't get back out. Thursday (and especially Friday!!) were unseasonably warm and the surface of many lakes and ponds was turning to water on top of ice. But super cold conditions on Saturday and Sunday froze it all up again, and I got back out on the ice for a couple hours on Sunday evening.





This time I brought a bucket to take some cold water crappie home with me. These were really decent fish...all between 10 and 12. There were a few dinks mixed in. Those went back in the hole, despite being "keepers" (technically) on Smithville.

Only ended up with 5 decent ones though, and as I walked off the ice at around 5:45pm, it was pretty dark. Not bad for a couple hours, though.





No water in the bucket, so they all sorta froze on the ice, which made them hard to measure, and even harder to fillet cuz they wouldn't lay flat!! But...I persevered.





This just never gets old!! It was good to get out and feel the tug.

[SuperDave336]

Nice report and pics. Thanks for sharing the adventure.

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Great post! Thanks for taking us along.

[ripnlips]

Congrats!

[jbornhop]

wow, good for you. looks fun, minus the cold!

[JUNGLEJIMJIGS]

Nice looking ice slabs but wish we had open water. What was the bait of the day?

[keeferfish]

You Go Joe!

[measure em]

Great Post and some good pics!

[Joedog]

What was the bait of the day?

The first two times out I was using these tiny tungsten jigs. Small profile but weightier than they look.

I was using an orange hair jig (like in the pic below) but...less hair and a few strands of that....tinsel stuff...IDK what it's called. I'm sure you do. But...super small.



That worked pretty good at first, but I switched over to a slightly bigger jig that was purple, similar to below, (only without that white nose piece!) This one worked REALLY well, actually!



And the third thing I used was a tiny yellow head with a super small yellow grub body (no real "tail"). That one was great, except that the hook was so small, I'd never actually hook up. They'd hold it and you might get it up to the hole but it would always spit the jig. Mostly right after it hit and you set the hook. Too small.



This image doesn't do justice. The hook was about the same size as the jig head!

The funny thing is, on the 20th when I went out...and was fishing that big ol' school of mostly black crappie...NONE of these worked very well. I mean...I got a few, but it was slow. It wasn't until I switched to THIS that the bite REALLY picked up!



I should probably mention. ALL of these were tipped with chartreuse crappie nibbles.

Next time I go out, I'll probably start with this!

[6poundtest]

Sounds like a great day on the hardwater!
And thanks for sharing the info on your baits; always nice to see what others are using and what's working. We've finally got enough ice to fish and I'm hoping to have as good a day this weekend as you had above. Gotta hit it while the ice is good!