What an interesting day to be on the ice today. From heavy fog, rain, sleet, and snow, things were certainly out of whack out there. Luckily some colder weather is on the way, and the ice doesn’t seem to be hardly effected by this short warm spell we’ve had the last few days. The ice is still in the 6-7″ range where I was today, and is clear for 4-5″ of that. Slushy conditions are making it hard to keep your boots dry, but it’s worth the discomfort.
On to the fishing.
Pictured here is one of quite a few “average” sized crappies that made it to the hole today. This one was an 11″er. Today the key was definitely using a flasher. Those without a flasher found some medium to decent size bluegills laying on the bottom, which are fun and all, but the slabs riding high are really what make the trip worth it to me. Most of the crappies are coming in from 5-10 feet down over anywhere from 18-25 foot of water. Using a jigging spoon tipped with a waxie, minnow head, or a combo of both is working well to get to the fish fast, and trigger them into slamming your bait. These pictures are just a sample of some of the good fish making it to the ice today. Although the 11-1/2″ fish pictured below was the biggest fish of the day, which isn’t anything too huge, the average size was pretty nice, most fish ranging from 10-11″ with 2 nice 11″ white crappies finding my forage minnow today. Later in the evening, we set up on a point, and were fishing in 19 Fow. The fish on the bottom were acting very funny 
and were just coming up about 1 ft and sniffing our baits. I finally hooked up with one, and it gave me a good fight 
turned out to be a 14″ walleye! we stuck it out here hoping for more, and ended up catching 2 more, nothing with size. Justin lost 2 and I lost one that felt nice however. It was very cool to say the least. Hopefully this weather slows down by morning, so we can enjoy another good day on the ice tomorrow! Good luck out there!
Cade
