The ice is ready! Brian and Dean met me over in the Wabasha/Kellogg area for some first ice fishing today. We decided to target some bluegills, but also hoped for crappie and perch. We would not be disappointed! The ice was a very solid 4 inches, so clear that you would sometimes see the hooked fish fighting below the ice.
The best location today was in a channel about 5 ft. deep. Most of the fish came within the bottom 12 inches of water. We found small ice jigs like tear drops tipped with waxworms to produce best. A ratso also produced several fish. I tried some larger lures like jigging spoons without much success.
Brian brought along some Reel Weeds and gave them a good test. I’ll let him submit a report on how they worked, but they certainly did not hurt anything. We all used shorter ice rods with spring bobbers and the use of a Vexilar or Marcum helped us see the fish to target very well.
As you can see in the pics, we had lots of fish and fun! Thanks Brian and Dean for a great day. We had perch pushing 13+ inches, gills pushing 9 1/2 inches, and crappies going 12+ inches. Lots of smaller ones as well. The wind was a bit brisk, but when the fish are biting great – it was easy to ignore the cold. Sure was great to be out on the ice again!
They are biting.