Ice Fishing – Pool 5 Backwaters

Another day with nice weather , so for me that means another day of ice fishing. I’m having a blast out on the ice! I decided a change of location was in order, so I headed to pool 5 today. The ice seems to be a little less thick than what I had on pool 4 – about 3-4 inches instead of the 6 inches I was used to. It was good hard ice though and I only saw a couple shoreline areas to avoid.

I found fish in about 5-6 fow. They were fairly aggressive when I first started fishing around 10:30, but things got much tougher within the first hour. The fish were hitting anything I put down the hole when I first got there, but almost all the fish were on the small side.

Once the catching slowed down, I switched to a larger offering – a tube jig on a 1/32 oz. jighead. Hole hopping was the best method. It seemed I could catch 1 fish out of a hole and that was all, so switching around to different holes was necessary. Sort of like trolling through the ice.

I worked the jig down to the bottom and then back up toward the top of the ice using short little jiggles with barely a pause. The fish usually hit hard when they decided the jig was worth eating. The larger lure and aggressive jigging made a big difference and I ended up with a nice meal of fish, also releasing many fish. The largest crappies were 12+ inches and the largest gills were 8+ inches. It was another great day to be out on the ice. Hope you get to enjoy some time on the ice soon!