I honestly can’t say that I’ve had a great year on the ice fishing for whatever I may be targeting on any given day. Most days I’ve been out I’ve been greeted with a tough bite, small fish, or my favorite, the combonation of the two. With a new year approaching, it was time for the boys to get back on the fish! It started yesterday at an area I have only hit one other time this year, with awesome crappie action in the 9 to 10″ size range. We were happy to see many vehicles on the ice and were able to drive all over allowing us versitility and enabling us to fish many different areas. We only found one productive area, a ditch in 10-12 ft of water that had crappies, gills, and a few perch buzzing through from the 6-9 ft range (crappies) to bottom for the gills and perch. Although not a lot of fish were caught (12-15 each) Kyle and I had a fun time trying to find what would make them bite. The trouble was not getting fish to take your offering, it was simply marking a fish. Most of the time when the fish came in they were quick to nail your bait, and come 3-5 feet in doing so. It was just unfortunate for us that marks were very few and far between. The barometric pressure and cold front, I would suspect had something to do with it 
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Today was a new day and a new area was on the table. Justin and I spoke this morning around 10:30 AM after a late wake-up and had a debate over where we should fish. In one corner was an area we have fished several times this year with some bass action and mediocre crappie/suspending baby bluegill action, and in the other corner was an area we know holds huge fish, but has been tough this year with a lot of small fish. Instead of giving in to our confidence, we chose the second, and headed for the ice. After some walking and fishing some off the wall stuff with no results, we decided we’d check out one more spot before we called the day. Glad we didn’t give in quite so soon . We ended up stumbling upon something we had no idea was there. And the fish were everywhere. The fish were so stacked it looked liked your flasher screen was overcome by shad, only dropping a bait revealed a multi-fish race to your offering. Using a forage minnow or swedish pimple tipped with a waxie or spike had even the 3″ bluegills going bananas! There was a lot of sorting involved but the fast action and agressiveness of the fish made waiting for the keepers enjoyable. The fish were hanging in a blow-out hole in 30 ft of water. Though most of the fish were bluegills, believe it or not they were suspending 8 to 15 feet down. The best way to make the fish bite was to start on top of them and quickly raise up about 3 feet, and they would come flying after your offering. Allowing them time to see the bait at a rest caused them to lose interest. The only way to get them to commit was to not let them think twice. When all was said and done, some nice fish were caught. Several bluegills ranging from 7-1/2 to 8″ long, and some beautiful crappies as well. Justin took top honors with a great 11-3/4″ crappie and Kyle had some solid fish in the 10 to 10-1/2″ range. I didn’t tie into any monster crappies myself, but in the 2 hours or so that we fished this area, I was able to scrounge up a nice group of 11 fish with a donation from Justin to make it 12 . It was a great day to be on the ice with friends, and an awesome way to kick off 2009 on the ice.
Pics:
First three are from yesterday, rest from today. More pics to come tomorrow (hopefully )
While Kyle made it to the ice around 7:00 AM and found a hot bite. Wazman Cometh also found his way to the spot and recognized Kyle from last nights pics. By 8:45 I was on the spot as well and a couple decent 11″ crappies made it to my hole right away. After that it was very difficult to get anything of size to take my offering. Kyle caught around a dozen nice crappies, most of which came before I got there, and Waz had the hot stick today with a bucket of I believe he said 16 fish. He had at least 4 in the 12 inch range, a couple were a little over. Very nice fish man!
