Well with a mind set on open water, I’ve been busy preparing other fishing items as of late. Realizing that there is not much time left on the ice for us this year, I decided to take a weekend and do some ice fishing for what is most likely the last time this year. Saturday I spent half the morning getting the boat in tune for open water. I launched on pool 9 and took a boat ride. Man did that feel good. when I was finished satisfying my craving for open water I met up with my uncle and fished some backwater..We caught fish but for the most part the fishing was tough. I managed to catch several crappies in the 10-11″ range with a nice perch and gill to go along with it.
Today I decided to hit up an area in La Crosse for some crappie action. Justin and I have been wanting to hit this area for some time and today we finally made it happen. At first we hammered the gills in around 20 ft. of water, suspended too 
after some moving around, we finally found what we came for..the crappies. It took some sorting and the fish were biting fairly light, but there were some good fish coming out of the gills to hammer our jigging spoons. For the most part our fish were along an edge into deeper water, suspending 10-15 feet down over 20-22 feet. The best bait was a forage minnow spoon with nothing on it, however later on in the afternoon the fish became more tight lipped and I had better success with a minnow head attached to the hook. I even caught some bluegills and crappies on a small jigging rapala. Overall it was a fairly nice day on the river, Although we would have liked to catch a few more nice fish, it was still a fun time and you can’t complain about ice fishing in a sweatshirt.
The ice we were on is 12-14″ with areas of heavy slush in some spots. The shoreline is also starting to get very tricky in some spots, so it’s only a matter of time before a boat or long board is the only way to get to the ice.
Here are the pictures..First is Justin with a nice 2-1/2 lb largemouth that wanted a piece of his forage minnow. The bass were suspending in with the crappies
next is me with 2 average 10″+ crappies caught today
Next is Justin with 2 good ones he caught both around 11″
Next is my biggun’ of the day, a 13″ white crappie.
Lastly is the fish pile we gave to a guy I know. These aren’t all the fish we caught today as we were playing catch ‘n release early on. Just a sample
