Ice fishing is better than no fishing!

[djkimmel]

I went ice fishing again yesterday to Round Lake this time, and me and Round Lake get along well even in winter. I started near shallower weeds and then moved out towards the sparser edge near a point with plenty of bites but couldn't hardly hook any of the bites.

When I finally did hook a couple of them they were what we call potato chips in ice fishing lingo - meaning tiny gills about the size of a small potato chip. Not what I'm looking for.

I used my GPS to find a deeper milfoil bed off another drop-off farther out. I stopped short of the weed bed thinking I might find bigger gills out past the edge of the weeds. Lo and behold it actually worked in my first stop out deeper in 11-12 feet of water. I started catching 6 inch or better gills up to about 8 inches. I had to fish only about a foot off the bottom to get bit. If I reeled up too high I stopped getting bit.

Out of about 22-24 fish I landed - they were biting very light - only 2 were big potato chips, the rest were all big enough to keep for filets if I was so inclined by not feeling like cleaning fish for a fish fry I let them go for another day. I dug another hole about 15 feet farther out and towards the weed bed approximate location and caught about a 1/3 of the fish from that hole.

This was my first keeper from the deeper hole in about 11-12 feet of water with very sparse weeds.


I thought this gill was interesting - old hump-back.


One of my nicer gills I caught on a Skandia Tapiola Tungsten jig that has a flat bottom so it wobbles on the way down. Not surprisingly some of my bites came on the initial drop.


Another one of the nicer bull bluegills I caught - this one on a brass plated Skandia Pelkie Tungsten ice jig tipped with a waxworm.


Ice was a good 8 inches of hard clear ice so I'm going back tomorrow before the big warm spell and rain hit us. See if I can bust out a little more of this cabin fever that's been pecking away at me lately.

Be careful out there if you go. The ice isn't uniform and strong everywhere of course.

[21XDC]

Those fish have some awesome colors... I should have you take some pictures for me to use to paint some lures.

Where I'm fishing this weekend, Wont have any ice. LOL 

[dartag]

Those fish have some awesome colors... I should have you take some pictures for me to use to paint some lures.

Where I'm fishing this weekend, Wont have any ice. LOL 

Me to but the water is  Salty.  Plus the fish are funny looking.  You catch a Sheephead or Drum and that is a good thing.   Stay warm up there.

[djkimmel]

Easy to stay warm right now with the high temps and even some sunshine! Not easy to want to go ice fishing so the 2nd day on Round might have been my last ice fishing day of 2016! I'm looking forward to softwater fishing now too. Maybe someone else wants to go to the Hot Ponds!!!