Pool 8 Cold Snap Panfish

Watching the weather forecast in advance for this weekend made me cringe. I never enjoy fishing in super cold weather..well of course I enjoy fishing, but the cold is not too fun. After pulling a few nice perch yesterday, my confidence levels were running up there, despite the weather predicted for today. We got on the ice and found a slow bite. It was about 20 minutes between each fish, but they were running decent sized at first. fishing a slough in 7 feet of water basically void of weeds was the plan for early this morning. We were hoping to get into the perch, but the first few fish were bluegills. Justin had one gill that was nearly 9″, and finally a nice perch decided to take my mini mert. The fish was just a hair under 11″ and put up a very good fight. almost TOO good for my 24″ ultra light after the perch and a few 7″ gills, this area pretty much died, and we headed further up the slough to try another area. fishing in 9 foot of water with wood cover produced some more nice bluegills and a few crappies resting just above the limbs of this tree. Lowering the bait slowly down to a mark and resting it on its nose was key to getting them to lip it, the rest was all in the hookset. By the end of the outing, Justin and I each iced between 25-35 fish with 16 of them being good sized eating fish. You can’t expect to fill your buckets on days like today, but with some patience, confidence, and zero intimidation, you should be good to get into some good panfish!
Hope everyone else had a great weekend!