New Pond, Familiar Lake

There are stories passed down between fishermen when they meet as acquaintances.  Most involve tales of how big the fish were or the quantity caught the last time the angler was fishing. Once there is trust established by this conversation the "sharing of the spots" sometimes occurs. I was fishing the ice on a lake I fished a lot last year.  I had things figured out so I could find the crappies I so love to catch last year so when we didn't have early winter and didn't have the extreme cold, and snow the fish weren't in the same places as they were last year.  

The story that got me to even try this new body of water was due to the expert words shared by a fisherman that his buddy's friend said if I walk x-number of paces off this landmark on the shore of this new pond nearby I'd find a 17-foot hole full of crappies. Hmmmmm....the buddy's friend says, huh.....well what the heck.  I took the week off to ice fish and relax.  So fish on this stranger's-buddy's, friend's, recommendation I shall!

This week has been pretty warm; in the 40s during the day and around or just below freezing at night.  I was happy to see I had "that many" inches of ice.  (1" increments were etched in my old hole-scoop; it broke)  I'd guess that's at least 6-7" which is plenty safe even in the warmer temperatures.  Now to drill holes based on the coordinates provided by...well, you've been reading.  You may be guessing how this will go.

I drilled more than 40 holes in this new pond.  I drilled near the landmark, set number of paces off the landmark, deep into two lobes where the pond juts off in directions; basically all over the pond.  I didn't catch my target species but I did get to increment my species caught and species caught through the ice by one.  Please welcome the Yellow Bass to the number of species I have caught freshwater fishing in my lifetime.

While pretty, the Yellows were also kind of tiny.  They did fight well for their size but after two hours, 40+ holes, and only two Yellows to show for my morning I decided to cut my losses and fish the nearby familiar lake where I'd learned about this little gem of a pond.  (can you feel the sarcasm?)

I traveled light to this lake.  It was warm and from what I learned the other day fishing I would need to be mobile and it was too warm for me to be stuck in my shelter.  My ultra-light custom ice rod, my fishing bucket that held my flasher, auger battery, jigs, larvae, and plastics, and my ION auger all were placed in my small Otter sled.

I found I could kick my holes open from the other day.  That will save me time.  I found my holes over five feet of water and dropped in a jig tipped with a waxie.

Bam!  I got a quick hit on my first drop.  A nice perch came up for a photo.  I wonder if...

Well, fish do school and look at that.  More than one nice perch from the same hole.  I wonder if I can do it again.  Nope.

I jigged up a crappie!  One of my favorites!  I wonder if there's anything else down this hole. There wasn't.  I had to go fish another hole; several actually.  What did I find in those holes?

A few hours of catching and I had my fix for the day.  I caught fish on both live maggots and artificial plastics.  I switched from live bait after I started catching more small bluegills than anything else.  The plastic I fished was the Trigger-X Moustache Worm.  It's like fishing a stick-worm wacky-style in concept; in practice it probably resembles some kind of bug.  The fact that the two, wispy tails cause the bait to sit horizontally makes it a large target. Most fish will think twice about the size of their mouths before attempting to tackle this bait and that was the idea.

Now while I don't recommend following every recommendation a stranger's-buddy's, friend makes regarding life choices fishing is another thing entirely.  All it took was the suggestion that this new pond held fish to push me over the edge to fish it.  I had been "Google Maps scouting" the pond for a while now.  I would have fished the new pond eventually but it took a recommendation from a strangers-buddy's, friend and now that I've fished it I doubt I'll fish it again.

As for the Familiar Lake, I'll be back always looking for for more fun catching. More fun fishing, and more species diversity.  All fish got to swim away with nothing more than a cool lip-piercing and photo to show for their topside visit.  

I never did find that "crappie hole" as described by a guy I didn't know.  I didn't suspect I would.  I had to fish the New Pond for the same reason people climb mountains; because they are there, because they pose a challenge, a puzzle to unlock. I had to return to the Familiar Lake for the same reason.....and because there are fish in that lake.  Catching fish is ALWAYS more fun then searching for 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.

Harrier Lake - First Weekend of March

I usually fish with several members of DuPage Angler on any given weekend.  This weekend's fishing was discussed on a Facebook group starting last Monday.  All the active ice anglers have a Facebook group and we talk fishing, ice fishing, more fishing, and probably something about fishing too.  This week we decided by committee that we would be fishing Harrier Lake in the DuPage County Forest Preserve District.

I fished Harrier earlier this ice season.  I didn't have very good luck at all so I was a bit uneasy going back.  I only caught two bluegills last time I was there and I hadn't read many reports from the lake this season. Still a bunch of my fellow DA Ice-Heads want to go, I go.

Left to Right: SteeliePete, JC1Crappies, CrankinKing

Left to Right: BrimReaper, SteeliePete

I found some of my DA friends quickly enough as they were the large group on the ice as well as the only ones on the ice.   There were already holes drilled and fishing happening but very few fish had been caught.  I put the battery on my ION auger and started to make swiss cheese of the ice. drilled a tennis court sized grid of holes through 20+ inches of ice.  My flasher showed me my holes were above 10-15 feet of water but there wasn't much activity at all on the flasher's dial.  

I saw a concrete drain on the shore and drilled holes toward it hoping to find a hole, edge, weed edge, or something that could hold fish.  I flashed the holes and stopped when I found what I thought was an 11 foot deep spot with a foot and a half of weed growth on the bottom.  The thing was these weeds were moving!

I grabbed the custom ultra-light I made last season.  It had an orange colored Fiskas tungsten jig tied on the 2# test ice line.  Two red and two natural colored spikes were impaled on the jig's hook before it was dropped down to the moving "bottom".  This "bottom" came up to take a look at my jig!

That "bottom" was a perch!  Not much of a perch but it was a species I don't usually catch so I was excited to see it come up for a picture.  That and I beat the skunk with this perch so the pressure to catch fish was officially off!  I wonder if....

Yup!  More "bottom" perch bit my jig!

This fish hit my dead-stick rod.  It's a light-power rod I made that I set up with a slip-float, a split-shot, and a pink Custom Jigs and Spins Diamond Jig.  I managed to rig a dead-stick up between the perch I was catching and releasing. 

This was the chunkiest of the perch I'd catch today.  In all I caught 8-10 perch with no other species mixed in.  Today was totally a perch day.  I enjoyed that!  I enjoyed catching a species I don't see often in my area of northern Illinois.  I enjoyed besting my personal best perch with the one in the gloved-photo above.  (Still not huge but better than my first perch ever)

More than 20" of ice in March.  I'm wondering if we'll be able to fish on top of the water up to May?  

May-be

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!

Desperately Seeking Bass

I was off work this MLK Day.  I received a tip about an ice fishable pond that was reported to have nice size bass.  I enjoy catching bass and any chance to target a different species is welcome. Not that I mind catching bluegills mind you but today I was seeking bass.

I arrived at the pond and it was exactly as it had been described. A non-descript retention pond like many others I've fished on hard water.  I normally haul my Frabill shelter around with me but I checked the weather before I left the house.  We were supposed to have at least 32 degrees and no wind to speak of.  That made it comfortable to fish light; run and gun style with a sled and no shelter.

Time for bass!  I dragged my sled behind me and walked down to the ice's surface.  My battery jacked in to my ION auger I drill three test holes and check bottom depth with my Vexilar. 9'5", 10', and 9'5".  I was looking for a depth transition and I didn't find one.  I looked for fish on my flasher but none were there.  Only one thing to do, drill more holes. I walked the length of the pond drilling a hole every ten to fifteen paces. Next I followed up with my flasher.  Depths stayed about 10' and all my holes were fishless.  All but one.  Jigging a Fiskas Tungsten jig tipped with two wax worms in this hole made the bottom get thick with fish, well-up, chase my jig and tap, TAP.

I like bluegill but I was hoping for bass.  Still bluegill are fun and this is a magic hole.  It has fish while all others like it didn't.  I put on a red Aurora Lure Company Maggie plastic waxworm and two white spikes above the Maggie for the meat smell.

You can barely see it in the above picture.  The red inside the bluegill's mouth is the Aurora Lure Company Maggie.  I use Maggies in two ways. Either as a complete maggot replacement or as a tool to extend the usefulness of my maggots.  Only the larger bluegill can get the whole jig in their mouth and the whole red and white package should tempt any bass of any size to take a look and perhaps a taste.

More fish fall to the Maggie!  No bass I'm noticing.  So continue my search and to prove the hole was magic I drilled holes all over the rest of the pond and moved my flasher from place to place.  I jigged up two bluegills in the rest of the pond and those two bluegills were the only marks I saw on my sonar at all.  I decided to call off my search.  I knew where my magic hole was and I went right back to sit in front of it.  

The sun shone down and kept me warm and the bluegill magically appeared, chased my jig, and went tap, TAP before the hook sets through the lip and another non-bass comes up for a look around on the dry side of the water.  Each bluegill was released to swim another day. 

Eventually my fingerless glove got wet from handling fish.  Wet gloves mean cold hands and sure enough I was ready to leave in little time.  I just turned off my flasher so I wouldn't be tempted to drop just one more jig and catch just one more fish.

I pulled at least 30 bluegill through that one hole.  Any day I can do that I'd call a good day!  I was wanting to catch bass but catching is catching and I had a good day out on the ice.