My 5 year old son has been wanting to get on the ice, so this afternoon, in the middle of a brutal Iowa January; he got his big break to show his dad up. 
Fortunately for me, I forgot the camera at home so there’s no record of my skunking. 
The ice was pretty thick, averaging close to 10″ or more in the area we concentrated. I took the back way to the gravel ramp on the south shore near the power lines. This is near the sunken roadway, an area that is supposed to harbor walleyes, but for me has produced only perch at other times of the year.
Lacking the modern conveniences of sonar and a power auger, 
we did it the old-fashioned way and I got some much-needed winter exercise to boot. We worked the front of a shallow cove that met the main lake and finally hit paydirt on the ninth hole (5th pair) of the afternoon.
JoJo is a jigging machine, methodically lifting the bait with a slowness and gentleness that drove the bluegills wild. You just can’t put a price on the ear-to-ear grin of your 5-year old son pulling his first bluegill through the ice! The action was fast, with JoJo barely getting his bait down until his spring bobber maxed out and was pegged against the rod. As the sun sunk lower, the action waned and it was time to head home for some warm cocoa. He’s quite the ice fanatic now, fighting me to pull the Fish-trap back to the truck. Dave Genz, watch out! 
Basically, plenty of thick ice out there (where we were, anyway) and some willing dinky bluegills. We used simple spring bobs with panfish jigs tipped with waxies, orange was the key color. I think we just luckily got on some brush; looked to be about 10′ of water or so. Other than one bull, all were dinks. We let them all go to grow a little bigger. There were 3-4 other shacks out on the lake, but no large concentrations. In gneneral, it was pretty quiet. Yes, I got skunked… 
By my own son, no less.
Regards,
Joe Jiacinto
