Left work at 0500 and ran west for a few hours. Took about 5 miles of walking today but gosh there was a lot of hooksets. Went through 4.5 batteries on the drill cutting holes. Just something special about late ice and fish stacking up in shallow reeds and sight fishing them. Macula jig/puddle jumper was really good, same with a 4mm tungsten and a plastic. Brown jigs, chartreuse or motor oil plastics were the key. Started in 12 fow in the morning and ended the day up into the pencil reeds. Kinda fun ending the day doing the “iowa thing.” Nothing crazy for mags, a few over 14, couple gills over 10 but no dinks which was fun. Stumbled into some nice perch too. Filled a bucket to have a few meals in the freezer even though the boat is ready and already been out around Brainerd fishing crappies. Those are still holding out deep and most of the big schools were still relating to hanging out under the ice sheets.
Really weird hourly dynamics today changing things but it was a helluva lot of fun. I don’t think anything within 2 hours of my house will be good post 5 days from now, and I need 36 hours off work to make metigoshe worth the trip. Thinking it’s just time to put stuff away and just wait her out 8 months, but maybe Ill call in sick. Shore line was still holding good but I bet we lost close to two inches of ice through out the day. Water temp under the ice was 45 degrees.
Crazy thing I had cleaning fish, I never kept a crappie after 11 am yesterday, cleaning fish at 8 pm tonight, pulled this crayfish out of the gut of a 13ish inch crappie, and it was still alive even with half of its side gone. Maybe I some sorta connected the dots with dark colors and double tail plastics. Puddle jumpers have always been a favorite of mine late ice. Ill throw up some more pics later on.
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