Decided to take my father out again for a little more panfish action. We headed out and got on the lake about 1pm or so. My father had wanted to break in his new (to him) icehouse as well as try and work out his new flasher set up. Basically, he has a Lowrace graph/gps. I can’t remember the model off the top of my head. Anyway, after using a flasher the last outing, he decided to buy the ice ducer for this graph and use the flash-graph screen. It didn’t work so well. By the time we got it all figured out, the graph had pretty much run the battery down. Oh well.
The day went by pretty good. I was slamming the sunnies, gills and perch. Nothing of great size, but was pretty consistent action. I was using a Genz Bug with a waxie which these pannies couldn’t seem to resist. My father was using a Lindy Frostee jig with a waxie. He swore it wasn’t working as well as mine, but with the issues he was having with his “flasher” I personally think he just wasn’t seeing/feeling them bite. He pulled up his line more than once and seen that his waxie was stripped.
At about 4:30, the fish turned off. We settled in to wait for the crappie bite. The crappies normally turn on about 6:30 pm or so. After an hour and a half lull… at almost exactly 6:30, I got my first mark on the Marcum. Unfortunately, that would be the only mark I saw for the night. My father managed to land 1 12″ crappie. And it is quite the story. He was trying to adjust his depth and, for some unknown reason, he was back-reeling to let more line out. Well, his Frostee spoon was on bottom and, without knowing this, he kept back-reeling and managed to have a nice mess of line wrapped around the reel, bail, and rod. He realized this and managed a few curse words. He showed to me and said “now watch, I catch a damn fish. Not 2 seconds later he feels a tap-tap and sets the hook. He thought he got stripped again. I held his pull as he started pulling up the line by hand. Sure enough, there was that 12” crappie. Too funny. For the next 2 hours, I told him to just tie a knot around is rod and hope for the best.
Although the action wasn’t fast an furious, it was still a fun time. When we got set up out there, another group of people were about 40 yards from us. I saw them drilling holes by hand. Considering there were 4 adults there, and 4 kids (1 adult being a man, the other were women), and the ice being 20 to 24 inches… I walked over with my gas auger to lend them a hand. Turns out, most in the group were from Arizona and had never been ice fishing. Glad I could help them out as they would have been there ALL DAY trying to drill by hand. They were very appreciative.
Here are just a couple pics I took. I normally focus more time on fishing, not pictures, so I normally forget to take them. these are off my phone, so not the best quality.
