Hit a north metro lake today up around Zimmerman. Lake had about 3 1/2 to 4 inches of good ice. Traffic was heavy too! I would say at one time there were about 60 people out on this small lake. Plenty coming in and plenty going out all day. Weather was beautiful and the gills definately cooperated.
It was my buddy and myself. Started out punching about a dozen holes to run and gun. This lake is pretty much a fishbowl and we separated ourselves from the crowd and fished outside of the 12′ hole. We set up in about 8 feet of water. Dropped the LX5 down and instantly marked fish. Perch were hugging the bottom and gills were coming off of bottom to about a foot up.
Started off jigging my ol’ trusty Lindy Frostee spoon in 1/16th. Tipped it with 2 waxies. This has been my go-to when I am aiming to fill a bucket. For some reason, if a fish is biting with a mile, the Frostee spoon will pull them in. Today was no different. Though we drilled a dozen holes, the first half hour found no need to move around. We had to weed through quite a few small ones, but did quite well with some gills coming in at 8-9 inches. My buddy was using an ant… and couldn’t believe that the gills and perch were hitting such a large bait. I told him that I have caught more gills off of that frostee spoon than any other lure in my box.
After about an hour and a half slaying the gills and a few pesky shiner sized perch, I switched over to the Lindy Rattl’n Flyer spoon. The gills were having such a feast biting on the Frostee… I was confident that I would achieve the same results. I was not let down. The Rattl’n Flyer Spoon produced just as well as the frostee… and even pulled in the largest gill of the day almost pushing 10 inches. It is amazing what those fish can fit in their mouth. That lure also pulled in a few perch that were bigger than the suckers we had on a tip up. those were the first larger perch we had caught for the day… but still too small to keep.
All in all, we ended up with 20 gills kept. All in all, we caught at least 60-70 fish. Was a great day on the ice. We finally called it a day when it got dark. Ice was really cracking and making us nervous. the last crack sent us packing when it actuall caused my Yukon to move. with as many people were out there making swiss cheese out of the ice with holes… I wasn’t too confident anymore with the colder temps coming.
No pics for the day though. I brought the camera… but when I went to take a pic of the first 8 1/2 inch gill… the battery apparently died. I guess the wife thought it was imporant to take pictures of the family on thanksgiving yesterday… leaving the battery dead for me. UHG.
