First Fish of 2017

Plans to fish happen organically for me.  A Facebook chat with fishing friends centered around the desire to fish a body of water back in my old stomping grounds.  I explained in the chat how to get sleds and gear to the water easily since I'd fished this lake before.  In our circles knowing key pieces of info often means you're going fishing. So plans were made quickly in the hours before bedtime Saturday night and the alarm went off way too early Sunday morning.  But it's amazing how quickly I popped out of bed knowing I was going ice fishing!

After getting on the ice last week, New Year's Eve I'd caught fish this ice season.  What I haven't done is catch my first fish of this calendar year. Hopefully we'd change that this outing.

Pondboy and I arrived to the spot within minutes of one another. Greetings were said, strategy discussed, gear loaded so we'd each only have to drag one thing and we headed to the ice.

Holes were drilled.  Actually Dan (Pondboy) drilled the holes.  I followed with the flasher.  I saw some marks on the bottom so I dropped a jig tipped with three white spikes down the hole.  I could tease the marks up but couldn't get them to bite.  About the time those marks lost interest I saw a weak green signal mid-column in 10 feet of water.  I reeled up to the mark and teased it into biting.  My first fish of 2017 is....

...a crappie!  A nice, thick-shouldered crappie for my first fish of 2017, not bad at all!  This lovely speck posed for a groggy early-morning photo with yours truly before heading back down the hole to swim and grow larger.  Now that the pressure is off and we got multiple marks at this depth we decided to set up the shelter because it was 15 degrees out and we were getting chilly.

Once we parked in the shelter Brim from the Facebook chat showed up dragging his sled.  We chatted for a few minutes before he drilled his own holes close to ours and set up his shelter. This is where we sit and catch a few small bluegills for longer than we'd care to admit until Dan decides to switch things up.  He bites off a marmooska jig and ties on a Hali spoon with a drop-chain.  Almost immediately he catches a much nicer bluegill.  

I had just purchased a similar style lure; a Lindy Perch Talker.  It's a chain with alternating gold plate, ball, plate, ball down to a drop chain and small treble hook. I put waxies on the trebles and dropped down my hole.  I teased a mark up and got it to hit, I set the hook and the fish pulled a little drag.  Dan was pumped at the thought of a larger fish.  He turned on his Pivot Head recording eyewear to get video of the catch.  It's a good thing he did as this is the best shot we have of a VERY nice crappie.

The hook let go at the hole and Dan got there just in time to see the big girl slip back down it.  Crud!  Oh well, I'm not one to get down about losing a fish.  I just became more focused on catching my next.  That said our bite died down and our marks became few, far between, and not interested in eating.

Fortunately Brim got his first fish of 2017 too before the bite turned off. Here's his first fish which also happens to be a crappie.

Brim decided to head home to projects he had queued up and Dan and I decided to head to the basin at the other end of this lake to see if anyone had told the fish over there they weren't supposed to bite right now.  We drilled and had mixed luck at the other basin.  Both of us caught small bluegills but I wasn't excited by the size of what we caught versus all the marks of small bluegills that filled my screen and started the walk back to the basin we started out in.

I started kicking open the holes we'd drilled earler while Dan drilled a few in 7 feet of water to see if we could get on any other bite.  I put my flasher's transducer in one of these holes and dropped down a green marmooska jig with three white spikes impaled on its hook. I saw a big mark separate from the bottom.  I teased it up and felt the peck of a bite and the bend in my rod as I set the hook.  Drag pulled and the fish ran several times.  This was the bite that settled a conversation Dan and I had been having earlier.

I guess there ARE bass in here too.  Dan helped me land this nice, thick backed largemouth, shot its picture, then I unhooked the Fiskas jig from the bony upper lip of this bass before releasing it back to the lake.

I cycled off the shallower holes back to the deeper ones and was playing with marks on my flasher.  Dan stayed shallow.

When I looked up at Dan he had his hands above his head.  His ultra-light jigging rod was bent in an upside down U.  I ran over to assist.  The fish ran one direction, then another pulling drag then POP....up came the jig, sans-bait, sans-fish.  I left Dan alone to re-bait his jig.  I walked back to my flasher hoping to set the hook on a monster from the deep.

A pretty little largemouth.  Fun but not what I had hoped for since the mark looked bigger than the fish.  Still, catching is catching.  I hope Dan hooks into a better fish.  Correction: I hope Dan hooks a better fish and hooks more than the front edge of the top lip so we can land it. Wait....Dan has his arms up over his head again....Jason for the assist!

That's a better fish and further proof that we have at least a breeding pair and a second year class bass in this lake we weren't sure had 'em.  After some pictures the bass was released and we both went back to jigging.  I'd get the last fish before we decided to call it quits for the day.

A good handful of crappie bookends the day nicely!  It's a great thing to have a multi-species day on the ice.  Pondboy even caught a bullhead from his seated bass-hole.  It means there is more than one forage base for each species.  It was clear these fish were getting enough to eat with their thick backs and varied but decent size.  

It has been a few years since I fished this lake.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  I'm pleased to say that the lake exceeded my expectations.  I would have liked for this to be less the Darkstar show and a more balanced fish tale but sometimes that's how things work out.  

The old saying goes "That's why it's called Fishing and not Catching".  We did a lot of fishing today.  We both did some catching today.   I guess that's what we  set out to do; go fishing.  And first fish of the year catching I did.  Here's to a great year fishing, and a better year catching!

First Ice 2016-17 In More Ways Than One

To say the year and a half since I last penned a blog has been full of events would be an understatement.  I've had a great year and a half that sadly hasn't included very much fishing.  It HAS included me moving to Palatine, IL with my wonderful Lupita.  We've added a sweet pit-bull we call Otis to the household and settled into the beginning of our life together.  I've been doing a lot, just not a lot of fishing.

That's why I was looking forward to ice season coming around.  I knew that I'd at the very least be able to get out ice fishing.  Since my move most of my things have ended up in the garage as a direct transfer from my old storage unit.  I knew where my shelter was.  My spud bar and flasher were accessible, rods and reels checked out, I even ordered a pair of Mickey Mouse boots for the ice season to come.  

Well the ice season came.  My friends who took time off work around the Christmas holiday were getting out on safe ice most every day.  This made me get the itch with only one problem.  I don't know where my box of ice jigs got to.  

Fortunately I was completely unaware of the fact that when I moved I set down roots less than a half mile from a fantastic bait and tackle store!  I got waxies, spikes, jigs and plastics in no time and was ready to go.

Planning happened earlier in the week but honestly I've been prepping Lupita for ice fishing since the first time I took her open water fishing.  I just had to wait for the right time to get her hooked!  I wanted to go Friday night after work.  I know Lupita had expressed interest so I shot her a quick text that basically said wanna go ice fishing tonight after work?  This was her one-letter reply.

Still, that wasn't a no!  :)  But things didn't work out for Friday so we planned on fishing together Saturday; New Years Eve.

We had four to five hours before we were to pick up Lupita's mama for dinner and all our gear was ready.  I gave Lupita pointers on which of her boots to wear and general guidelines on clothing.  We loaded up and arrived at our destination.  The whole drive I explained ice fishing and answered her questions.  She felt comfortable enough (more on that later) to help pull sleds of gear to the shore, strap on Kahtoola micro spikes, and follow me out a few feet onto the ice.

Pita's HEY, I'M WALKING ON A LAKE selfie!

Pita loves shoes.  No surprise we've got a picture of her feet safely on ice.

I showed Pita how to spud for safe shore ice, drill a test hole to measure thickness, and then we walked out to where a spring was still bubbling up through the ice.  I drilled a test hole to flash for marks.

10-11 feet of water, I was marking fish on a narrow flasher cone setting on my FL-20.  Of course I had my ultra-light rod rigged up with a Fiskas Tungsten jig and an Aurora Lure Company Magic Maggie in red.  I dropped down and teased the mark up but it didn't eat.  No meat on the hook so I can't say I blame the fish.  We decided to set up here since I knew the pond and had a tip from Pondboy that he did well near that spring earlier in the week.

Setting up the underwater camera. (surprise photo)

Hey, there are bluegills!

Pita's "I'm sitting on a comfortable seat after walking around on a lake for the first time look."

And of course the in the dark shelter couple selfie.  Now let's fish!

I originally was going to have Pita use the camera on my FL-20 Double-Vision system and I'd use the flasher in another hole. That plan went out the window when it got dark. The spring stirred up the water a lot and all we could see on the camera were dots of whatnot moving around, not her jig and not fish.

I explained the basics she'd need to know about fishing with a flasher. Signal strength green to yellow to red.  That's the bottom, that's your jig. That line moving between the bottom and your jig is a fish.  See it come up to your jig?  You'll feel a tap when it....steals your waxie. That's ok.  I have 99 waxies at this point so we'll put another one on.  Also this is the first time Lupita's felt the tap of a fish biting a lure.  Now she'll get the next one.  Not before I catch the first one however.

It's not a big bluegill but you can see it got my whole jig, Magic Maggie, and a few spikes in it's mouth.  It felt good to catch, no matter the size. Soon Pita was ready to drop down the hole. She read the flasher, saw jig, saw fish, saw fish move toward jig, then reeled like mad when she felt the tap!  Not convention ice fishing form but it was effective.  I present to the world wide web Lupita's first ever ice fishing catch.

It was a wonderful moment punctuated by a lot of loud and joyful "YAYs", some clapping, and big smiles!  Pita was happy, I was happy, the fish...the fish may have been happy, I'm not sure. Pita admired the blue colors on the gills and the iridescent purple colors on the bluegill's back before she leaned forward and let the little swimmer go back down the hole.

We fished, talked, laughed, and enjoyed each other's company.  Lupita was very excited and happy with this new experience.  Now the only thing that made her uncomfortable was the shifting groaning of the building ice.  I explained it's below 32 degrees so the ice isn't going away from under our feet, rather it is growing and grinding together like the plates that make up the earth.  No phaser-sounds were heard today but audible groans and vibrations felt through our feet were slightly unnerving for Pita.  I told her if she came with me often she'd get as nonchalant as I am about the noises the ice makes.  

Now, I promised more about how comfortable Lupita initially felt.  In a word, she was terrified. She told me afterward the idea didn't make sense to her how it would be safe but she trusted that I knew how to keep her safe and that I wouldn't put her in any danger.  Once she took her first steps onto the ice she said she relaxed and it became more of an adventure than something to fear.  It became fun!  I knew it would (I was pretty sure it would, at least).

This was a fantastic New Years Eve 2016!  We spent it together on the ice, together at dinner, and then as we've both discovered since we aren't in our 20s anymore we fell asleep at 10PM. We only knew it was 2017 because someone in the neighborhood shoots off fireworks to punctuate special events.  My father used to light off a Cherry-Bomb or 1/4 Stick every year at midnight on NYE so I zonked back out quickly and had happy dreams of Lupita's first ice fishing experience.  I'm pretty confident it won't be her last. :)

The Old Man and the Ice

My friend and fellow DuPage Angler Dan "Pondboy" Byrne was born in January.  Every January on or near the anniversary of his birth he takes the day off work and goes ice fishing all day long.  I've had the pleasure of taking off work along with Dan and joining him for his day-long ice fishing extravaganza the last two years and this year I made it three.

I was joined in my ice fishing birthday well-wishing by two other DuPage Anglers; Ted "Soonerbass" Yates and Chunsum "JC1Crappies" Choi.  We met Dan at 6:30 in the morning to start out on our day with the Old Man and the Ice!

By now you've probably guessed who the Old Man is and this Old Man recorded a not at all candid but very cool video of me drilling or more technically "shaving" a hole in 6-8" ice.  I'm partial to the slow motion water that comes up with the auger once the hole is cut.  Isn't cell-phone video cool!

Back to fishing now. I made some holes and the four of us ran around dropping lures and electronics down into the holes to try to find fish and where they were holding.

Chunsum caught first and got a nice gill topside for a picture.  His electronics didn't show any other fish in the area and he soon moved from this hole.

Ted and I got a double.  His largemouth bass and my bluegill bit at the same time and came up for photos.  No evidence of schooling bluegills or fish of any kind evident in either of our holes meant we both moved on like Chunsum had.

Ted's new hole yielded a crappie....and nothing else.  The fish are very spread out and we were working to find a pattern to the bites.  I took this picture of Ted and his crappie then picked up my flasher and rod and headed to one of the first holes I'd drilled.

Ooooo...a mark came in from the bottom to check out the jig and wax worm I'd just dropped down the hole.  This mark was different from the bluegill I'd caught earlier.  It was bigger.  It took my jig and I felt mushy-weight on my rod.  I set the hook.

My rod bent down quickly like it was iron and the hole was a magnet. Big head-shakes, decent runs. I monitored my drag and held on to the rod. Dan asked me if I needed any help.  I asked him to get my flasher's transducer out of the hole.  He did one better. He got down on the ice and watched and waited for a glimpse of the fish and the chance to help land it. 

The big mark was a nice largemouth bass! I love catching all species but I always enjoy catching bass through the ice.  Usually I'm not targeting them so they are a fun diversion from smaller panfish. On top of that they're a hoot to catch on very light tackle!

After releasing this bass the bite stopped.  We made more holes and caught no more fish.  The decision was made to pack up and have lunch. While we ate lunch at a local burger joint it was decided to make the short trip to a pond Dan grew up fishing.  Someplace we could get on schooling fish and find a more consistent bite. 

Ted had to leave us here so Dan, Chunsum, and I went to the pond.  Dan and I figured out where we wanted to set my shelter up and got settled in to start catching fish.  The crappie, bluegill, and bass we'd catch here were smaller than the private pond but more consistent of a bite.  We ended up catching another 20-30 fish before we decided to pack it in and head home. 

We all had a great day fishing.  Tomorrow we would all return to the 9-5 existence but tonight Dan would get to enjoy the rest of his day with his family.  Fish were caught, anniversaries celebrated, and friendships strengthened.  

Happy Birthday Dan!  I look forward to the end of January 2016 when I'll take a day off work and join you and probably other avid ice anglers in the celebration of your birth the only fitting way we can; by drilling holes in the ice and jigging up fish.

2015 First Time On Ice

ICE!!!  We finally have ice!!!

Living in northern Illinois I often watch ice reports from North Dakota and Minnesota.  Those are the first states I see ice reports from.  I start to get excited when Wisconsin and Iowa have ice thick enough to fish.  I wait semi-patiently while weather gets cold, skim-ice starts to appear on ponds and lakes, my fellow ice anglers and I turn into weathermen as we watch extended forecasts waiting for the water to get thick enough for us to feel comfortable walking out on the water.  This year we had a few weeks of cold, then warm, then cold, then warm, then frigid, then finally frozen!

This past Saturday was my first opportunity to get out and ice fish.  My friend Alan was just as excited as I was and we met shortly before sun-up to take our first steps into the 2015 ice season.

I started drilling holes; the first to test ice thickness which was 7-10", the rest to find weed edges, and the depth transitions I knew should hold fish.  Alan followed with my Vexilar flashing depths and checking for fish activity.   As often happens to the person following the hole-driller Alan hooked up with his first fish of 2015!

Ok, a little underwhelming but the skunk was off Alan.  I kept drilling holes with my ION until I heard Alan say, "Hey, a big mark is chasing my jig."  Yeah it was!!  Alan set the hook when he felt a mushy sensation and was rewarded by his straight line reel handle spinning backwards and whapping his palm several times before he could use his hand as drag. With pressure on the line the fish knew it was hooked and began to massively bend Alan's panfish rod toward the hole.  After five minutes of back and forth Alan turned the fish and got its head up the hole.

Alan seriously upgraded on his second fish for 2015!  A very nice largemouth bass with a tiny, perch-pattern Fiskas jig tightly embedded in its upper lip.

We decided to set up my shelter over this hole for the obvious reason being held by Alan above. We were sitting on top of 7-8' of water right off a transition down from 5'.  It didn't take long before I was able to jig up my first fish of 2015 using a small Salmo Chubby Darter lure.

While it isn't a huge crappie I'm glad my first fish of 2015 was a nice chunk of a speck.  I enjoy catching the wily crappie and I released this pretty example back to the cold water to swim, eat, and spawn.  

It turned out this would be the only fish I caught my first outing of 2015. Alan started moving around a bit bouncing from hole to hole outside the shelter when he hollered for me to come check out what he caught.

Alan hooked into a very nice perch!  There is probably a good reason the perch-pattern jig caught the nice largemouth bass earlier today.  This perch was also released to eat, spawn, and grow.  I feel it's the right thing to do in small, un-managed lakes and ponds and so does Alan.

The sun was high in the sky, the ice surface was getting sloppy, and frankly I was tired.  We called it a day around one o'clock.  It was a great day getting out on the hard water!  Alan had a fantastic day of catching and while I only caught one crappie it was enough to get my skunk off as well as give me a taste of ice fishing again.  It had been too long since I last walked on water to do one of the things I enjoy most.  I'll be sure to get out again soon.

Snowy Saturday Crappies

I was up late Friday night so I didn't want to be up at the crack of dawn to go fishing on Saturday. The weather was supposed to be cold until early afternoon when we could expect warmer temperatures in the 20s and a forecasted 1-4 inches of snow. I packed up slowly and took my time getting to the lake I was planning on fishing today.  Maybe I took a little too much time.

I hadn't been parked long before my windshield was completely covered by big, fluffy snowflakes. I knew the slog from my car to the area I knew to be productive would be hindered by the snow. The deeper it gets the harder it is to drag a sled along behind you.  I'm 6'2".  I mention that to show what I was walking through for the first 50 yards pulling my Frabill Trekker Max shelter.

Those are my knees.  I have a strap tied to the rope for pulling the shelter.  I take this strap and loop it around my waist.  Then I walk until I need to stop to take a breather.  I finally got to an area I figured was in the basin I've identified as good multi-species area. I drilled holes and walked around flashing, looking for fish and a drop off. I drilled a bunch of holes and my depth stayed around seven feet.  I carried a new rod with me; a Frabill Straight-Line combo.  I found one hole with bottom activity.  I dropped the dark Bentley jig down to the level of the commotion on my flasher.  The commotion came up and ate my jig.  What would the commotion be?

Snow courtesy of Google Auto Awesome

It was a crappie!  I love catching crappies!  They are a fish with plenty of personality that hit minnows differently than they hit jigs, than they hit spoons, than they hit Darters and Zippers.  I decided to set up my shelter here.  At least there was one crappie here.  There is almost never only one crappie in an area as they are schooling fish.  I hadn't been in my shelter very long when I found another crappie.  

Then another...

The perch pattern Clam tungsten jig seemed to be the ticket for the crappies today.  The ticket to a 12"+ crappie for me!

I know, I need to get a bump-board to measure fish on before the Kayak Wars season starts up. For now I measure crappie against objects in my ice equipment. See the crappie overflowing the corner-to-corner hold.  The corner-to-corner measurement is 12".  The side to side measurement is 10.75".  That is important to remember after I change jigs.  That happens right about now.

That's an 11" crappie!  I changed to a big glow-in-the-dark Clam tungsten jig with red eyes and accents, tipped with a red maggie and red spikes for extra flavor.  It worked! Drop the jig to the bottom, whap it against the bottom a few times, then raise up a foot or two and watch the crappie zoom in and whack the jig.  I lost a few at the hole that I swear were larger than the 12" but they didn't stay stuck to the jig so I can't prove it.

I caught several more crappie, lost several more, finally what made me decide to stop fishing was I melted my 2# ice line with my heater and the jig dropped off behind it. 

The snow was still falling.  I had to shake it off my shelter as I packed it up.  I had readied my body for the long walk through deep snow back to my car and I still made several stops along the way to catch my breath. The shelter slides easily over ice but snow is a whole other matter.

The ice is good and thick and should stay that way for several more trips out on top of the lakes and ponds.  I hope the ice stays and the snow goes.  I don't mind fishing in the snow but it sure makes it hard to drag my creature comforts with me.  It's those comforts that make it nice to catch Snowy Saturday Crappies.

Rippin' Lips with the Zipper

I got out on the ice early Saturday morning. Pondboy and I drove separately and DuPage Angler member JC1Crappies beat us to the pond.  JC1 drilled test holes before Pondboy and I arrived and was taunting us with pictures of crappie he was catching in the pre-dawn snow.  Pondboy and I dragged our sleds out onto the ice.

The snow we had earlier in the week was four inches deep for most of our walk to where JC1 was catching fish.  Pondboy got ahead of me but half way to JC1 he dropped to his knees and then fell on his back.  I yelled his name a few times before he popped up on his knees and resumed dragging his sled.  Once I caught up to him I found out he was making a snow angel.  I reminded him of our age and that I thought he could be having a heart attack.  He promised not to do any more snow angels unless I was close enough to know he was just playing around.

We drilled holes, flashed the holes, found bottom structure we liked and set up our shelters. Pretty soon after setup I was able to tease a mark up to my jig and get it to eat. 

A very nice sized crappie came up for a photo!  I thanked it for eating my jig and let it slip back into the cold water below my shelter.  The bite slowed and not many marks appeared on my Vexilar.  I decided to change tactics and stop using marmooska style jigs and use a bait that would call the fish to it.  Another DuPage Angler member CSimon caught a very decent perch from this pond two years ago.  This memory guided my lure choice.  I pulled out a Plano box and picked a Salmo Zipper in Hot Perch color.  

It wasn't long before the commotion made by ripping the Zipper up and down in the water column made light marks appear on my flasher.  I settled the lure down near the bottom and wiggled my rod to make the Zippper rattle lightly.  A mark moved in quickly.  I teased it up to mid-column before it bit.

A crappie ate my Zipper. Look how far down this fish's mouth the Zipper is.  This would be the way almost all fish would eat the Zipper today.  I released this nice speck and dropped in for a chance at another fish.  It didn't take long.

This guy T-Boned it!  That means he shot in from the side, opened his big crappie mouth and GULP!! This Zipper fishing is great fun!  I wonder if any other species will eat the Zipper.

That's what I figured.  Crappies and Bass are going to be feeding on small perch and this largemouth clobbered my Zipper!  I saw another mark on my flasher so I released the bass quickly and dropped the Zipper back down the hole.

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!  The reel's drag squealed!  Bounce, bounce goes the rod tip with deep headshakes!  Three more runs later this estimated three pound bass whacked my Zipper and ran hard away from the hole when he figured out he was hooked.   That was tons of fun!

It was that much sweeter since I made the rod I caught it with.  The rod performed flawlessly after hardly being used last year. I just didn't have confidence in anything that wasn't a panfish jig.  I'm enjoying seeing the error of my ways manifesting in some great fish all caught on a baitless, crank-style jigging bait; the Salmo Zipper!

Most of my fish came on the Zipper.  A few fish ate my deadstick.  A deadstick is a rod that just sits there next to you.  Generally it's got a minnow on a ice jig floating under a slip-bobber all running down the hole.  I had the minnow positioned close to the bottom.  I was hoping to catch a decent perch.  All of a sudden Pondboy yells for me to come over to his shelter.  His deadstick got hit and he had a surprise for me.

The day's only perch.  It was a nice one too! It's always great to have a multi-species day that includes something other than panfish and largemouth.

The snow had stopped and the sun was out.  It was still a bit chilly but we'd had a great morning! I was pleased to call it a day after a lot of catching.  The key to my success today was simple; I thought outside of my little fishing box.  I used tackle that I had purchased to work with a rod I had built that I hadn't used.  It's great to get some confidence in a bait and I can say I now have fantastic confidence in the Salmo Zipper!