Iowa First Ice!

After the year we had last year, I was worried that this season would be the same. We had some ice go on and come off like last year. I think the cold is here to stay this season. I went out a few times on a local lake searching for crappies this past week. I think we are on a bust year for keepers. Lot’s of 7 inchers and only a few keepers around. Looks tough. I fished 2 days for crappie when I decided to tackle some Wipers. I only had my Quiverstick/241 fly reel with 2 pound test with me. I didn’t really expect to get into them any way….

Well, long story short, I found them. I ended up seeing huge red marks on my Marcum for the next hour and a half. The fish ended up being a mix of wipers and stripers. I had them responding with an aggressive cadence. It was hit and run over and over. I had several monsters on the end of my undersized gear. Talk about hard to handle. It was amazing to see these fish coming up in the clear water towards the hole and making runs right below my feet. I wish I had a video camera….it’s rare to have this clear ice under foot. I managed my personal best wiper of 8 pounds. I had 3 others that I couldn’t manage to get to the hole that felt even bigger…..why didn’t I bring my rod case? Oh, we’ll…..still a blast!

I still wanted to tangle with some big slabs and a few mongo gill wouldn’t be bad either. I fish with Mitch Meyers on occasion. He has access to a private pond that is loaded with 9 and 10 inch gills. We decided to give it a shot. Mitch wanted to try out some of his hand made/painted jigs. I’m a CJS guy but I agreed to try them out. They worked really well as you will see.

We arrived, unloaded, and took off down the hill to the water. After drilling a test hole we found a solid, clear 4-5 inches of ice, we’re in business. After finding out that neither of us had the deep tree we wanted to fish on GPS, we headed to a shallower spot that I had marked. And so it begins…

With holes drilled, flashers set up, and plastics rigged, it was time to wet our lines. It didn’t take long for the first round of fish to come through. BANG, just like that we have a few 9-10 inch gills and redear on the ice, pretty typical for this pond. Then just like that, it happened…CRAPPIES! We knew there were big ones in there as we both have a 16 1/2 incher on the wall from the pond, but we didn’t know there were numbers. Mitch started pulling them out pretty quickly. First a 14, then I a bigger one, it was a monster, we could see it under the ice. Just like that it threw the hook, gone… Not long after, I ice a 14, then Mitch gets a 12, and yet another pig! This one made it almost all the way to the hole before Mitch screwed it up. Twice in one day? Are you kidding me? Just as quick as the crappies showed up, they were gone. Back to the dreary old 10 inch bluegills I guess!

The gills and redear kept coming in packs like they always do and we kept landing them. The fishing slowed a bit around early afternoon so we headed across the basin to the pond’s dam, another productive spot. We drilled some holes and started bouncing around. We got into some 12 inch bass, which were fun, but not what we were after. Next thing I know I see what looks like a hub cap going in circles under the ice. I started going nuts, yelling “Oh my, oh my God, HUGE GILL!” Out of my hole slides an absolute dinner plate of a bluegill. It quickly went in a bucket with snow, that pig is going to be hanging in my wall in the basement before long. The monster went on tape at 11 1/4″ and weighed 1.4 pounds. I told Mitch earlier that I was going to catch a pound and a half bluegill. I came up a little short!