Today I had the pleasure of fishing with Bob Gillispie, Bob’s father in law "Papa Karl", and good buddy Trevor.
It was a little slow today, but we still managed to have a good time on the ice together!!
The game plan for today, was to target walleyes until the bite slowed. I would guess that we caught around twenty walleyes all in the 13-15" range. Obviously not mille lacs fish, but for Iowa, I was very pleased! Bob also got a bonus smallie through the ice!! For the walleyes, we were using go devils tipped with a minnow head, a diamond jig with a waxworm, or a minnow and splitshot. They all seemed to work equally. After the bite slowed, we tried to locate suspended crappies. We were marking a ton of suspended fish, however there were no takers.
We decided to move on to the next spot. We got set-up over a tree in thirteen feet of water. With branches from the top all the way to the bottom. This is where I would like to talk a little about how neat a LX-5 truely is. On normal mode, with a gain setting of one, the whole screen was lit up from top to bottom. Some of the returns were fish, some were branches. It would have been truely impossible to see your jig in these circumstances. But, when I hit the narrow beam transducer button, it immediately got rid of 90% of the clutter, and I was able to differentiate fish/structure. I could tell if there was a fish hugging tight below a branch, drop down and catch him. Now, is this necessary to catch fish? No, but it sure makes it ALOT easier!
For those of you who don’t know Bob Gillispie, he is the owner of Custom Jigs & Spins, and a great guy! I really had a good time fishing with you and Karl today! The best was outfishing you with your own baits!!;) Here is the smallmouth that fell victom to Bob’s new Diamond jig.
This last picture is of Trevor, and one of the smaller walleyes we caught today.
Ice conditions- Ice is still unsafe in many areas. There were four of us together today, I had a rope, life jacket, and each of us had picks. I do not recommend going on any ice near or on a river yet/ if at all this year. Especially if you don’t know how the current travels through it. As for the lakes, this weather was perfect. The snow that was on top, melted to slush yesterday, and that froze today. With the forecast for the next week, we are going to be making ice fast!!
All fish were released!!
Good Luck, Stay SAFE, and we’ll see you on the hard water!!
One more small walleye…
Crappie…
Geeze guys…thanks for taking some pictures of my fish!!
Hey, Luke have you heard anything on the cedar of palo this week. was down to Belvideer today and did real well! We should hook up and show all the boys from the north what big gills look like from down south.
great report Kory
Nice report Luke, looks like everyone had a good time. We should be making some good ice for the next few days.
Ed
Looks like a good time.
Thanks for the Up-Date.
Good report Luke–always enjoy your informative posts! Next time call me–I drag the hut, drill the holes AND clean the fish!
–Whitey
Good to see you guys are on the ice down there in the Sout. Fishing with Bob and crew is always a lot of fun. Good report and see ya on Winni.
Kory- I haven’t heard anything on the cedar…
Anytime you wanna go- let me know!!
nice post luke
Great report. Looks like fun. Thanks for going w/out me
Thanks for the post,looks like fun!
Good info and good report, Luke!
Great post guys…. and awesome pics to go with it. Great to see a nice bonus smallie through the ice plus it is always a blast getting into the eyes too even if they are 12-15 inch fish.
Keep up the good work.
Layne Monroe
Luke,
Seriously it was nice meeting up with a fellow Iowan who can fish. A little history I fished several times with his Dad, Cliff, about 20 years ago for some Huge Walleyes on the Mississippi. He was, and probably still is, quite the fisherman. Looks like he taught you well.
Thanks again for taking Karl & I to a couple of your hot spots. The fishing was great, although we’ll have to discuss who out fished who with our products!! Although that seems to be a common topic amongst fisherman.
I just recently discovered this board, much more palatable the “The other site”, a lot more knowledgeable posters, less politics, etc. I look forward to spending lots of time on the site in the future.
Hopefully we can get out again this year, maybe when it’s a tad bit warmer!!
Tight Lines,
Bob
Lol…
I tried to put a wink..
in there, but it didn’t take…
I took my wife out today, with the heater on high, she still got cold, but we did manage a few fish…At least after this week, we should have some good ice everywhere!!
LOL. I might concede you MAY have caught 1, maybe 2, more fish then I did.
They did like the Firetiger Diamond jig, that’s for sure.
One gd thing about the brutal temps is it should make some good ice now that the snow is all gone.
Then we might not hear it crack when we all 4 run to the Marcum camera at the same time!!!
Tight Lines,
Bob
The invite to the North Country is always there as well Bob. Anytime you would like to come up I am willing to see how stuck I can get again.
Great report Luke. It’s nice to finnally have some good ice in our areas.
Great report Luke. It was nice to meet you at the GTG. Love2Fish