South Metro First Ice Report Dec-22

Heres a quick update from my first trip out on this ice in the metro this season. A few buddies and I decided to try a completely new body of water that none of us had fished before. This ended up being one of the best fishing/scouting decisions we’ve ever made. With walleyes and crappies on our mind the plan was to drill as many holes as possible with hopes of finding schools of actively feeding fish during the day and then set up onto some shallower structure after dark for the night bite. Without having any idea what to expect we were surprisingly greeted with a nice eater walleye within the first 30 minutes of hole hopping and the bite only went up hill from there. We iced a half dozen 15-17″ fish from 330 until dark. After dark the crappies started to show up along with our biggest walleye of the outing pictured below. The techniques for catching all our fish were aggressively jigging 1/16 and 1/8 oz slender spoons and buck shots tipped with the head of a minnow. The early ice bite is absolutely on fire right now remember to be safe and get out there to take advantage of it!
All fish over 19″ were released right after a few pictures

Nice fish man. Great to see someone go and try new water and be sucessful its alot of fun.

Nice fish! I love to try new water but strike out a lot. I have made it a goal to try a few new pieces of water at least each season. Whether its a new lake or a different part of a lake! I have no problem finding the pannies, its the eyes that always elude me if they are in the lake. Posts like this keep me at it thats for sure!

Nice job guys! Thanks for cutting loose the bigger fish also! That’s very admirable around here. Something that is not against the law but seems like many people just ignore on the metro lakes. That last photo is very nice also. Love all the fins popped!