Elevated heart rate.
Breathing heavy.
Sweating through my clothes.
This ice fishing is tough work!
Putting on 40# of cold weather gear, hauling a sled full of stuff on and off the ice, drilling like 20 holes. Plumb wears you out!! But....WAY more fun than going to an actual gym.
Went back out to the same spot on MLK Monday. This time I got out there around 12:30pm so I wouldn't be packing stuff up in the dark. Fish weren't on the trees like last time. Had to scope around and move and drill more holes, only to see the school move, and move again. Finally had enough holes where I could drop on them and if they moved, I could just switch spots and drop on them again. (That livescope is a life saver!!) But these fish weren't holding to structure at all. Always roaming around.
Attachment 499531
Forgot to say so in the previous post, but the ice was now closer to 6" thick, so....plenty safe. It also took more to get these to bite, and despite the PILES of fish that were down there, very few were interested in my little tungsten ice jigs. Still...managed about a half dozen or so before switching out jigs to a more traditional (although a meager 1/64th oz) jig with a red and white tube tail. All of the sudden they were all over it, and I caught another half dozen keepers (and several more shorts) in less than 30 minutes!
The other thing was...these were all mostly black crappie, and all between 9-10 inches. Maybe one or two that were over 10"...and only a few whites. I guess this is more testament to the fishing. On the other two visits, the fish were all over the trees, and while there were a bunch of them, it wasn't like the whole screen was lit up. This time, they were not really near any trees, and just gobs of fish in big honkin' schools, so...that's probably why there was a difference in the size and sub-species?? IDK.
In any event, I finished my limit and was off the ice by around 3:30pm.
Attachment 499532
I *did* see one other person come out to the ice around 2:30p or 3pm....that's the first idiot (other than myself!) that I saw on the ice this year.
Now it's back to work for the rest of the week but with cold temps all week, I'm looking forward to getting out again on Saturday and/or Sunday.
Hopefully I'll have another report for y'all who are stuck inside with cabin fever!!
