Knowing that I might never have the opportunity to ice fish in May again I took a day of vacation yesterday and headed up to the cabin.
It took quite a while to find the fish and once we did they were pretty tight lipped, but finally after many many holes and a color adjustment we found a pretty decent pattern. The crappies were actually holding so close to the bottom of the ice that we were catching them with tip downs set so that the minnow was dangling no more than 1′ under the ice. We ended the day catching around 25 crappies with a half dozen bonus walleyes mixed in. What was interesting is that even with plenty of ice still on the lake several of the walleyes were already spawned out. The walleye pic is of the biggest one next to my 28″ panfish rod and she still had eggs but she was definitly ready to drop as she lost a few when I slid her back down the hole.
Probably the last trip for me but what an awesome year it’s been! Now bring on the soft water 
