Iowa Ice Fishing Report 1.27.2008

Wow- what another great day on the ice- The fishing today was the worst fishing I have experienced yet this month. However, when you have good friends on the ice, a great day is still in the books.

Joining me for today’s ice trip were, Bob Gillispie, Marshal Yanda, and Mitch- We met up at the shop at 12:00 and again were skeptical about finding safe ice on the Wapsi.

We loaded up my truck- and did we have a ton of gear crammed in there: four legacy ice rod bags, lifejackets, four lx-5’s, two camera’s, and a ton of CJ&S tackle. I like it when Bob gets to come fishing with us- I don’t have to open my tackle boxes all day! As the winter progresses on, it is evident that the first ice bite is well over, and the majority of the fish have to be finessed into biting. This is where good quality ice tackle comes into play. I wouldn’t be caught dead on the ice without an lx-5, a camera, and a st.croix legend spring bobber rod rigged with a ratso. Particularly a glow head/blue tail ratso. Using all of the above, puts together all the pieces of the puzzle for icing finicky fish.

First you have to find them, using the flasher, then I like to use the camera to watch the different crappies within a school, to find which ones are more active, or at least moving around. Most times, it is the fish that are the highest in the water column. Today, there were crappies in 17 FOW, from the bottom, all the way up to 5 feet below the ice. The ones highest in the water column were the most aggressive. Once I have determined that, I like to go to work with the spring bobber/ratso. Working the ratso with a spring bobber can be art. Fine tuning your spring bobber is necessary to get the most “subtle” action out of the ratso tail. Many times when fish will not hit anything, they will hit the ratso bait. I like to set my sring bobber so it is the most sensitive, and then I begin to work the bait, only using the spring bobber. Making the ratso tail just barely twitch. This type of presentation can only be performed with a spring bobber, but it is deadly for finicky fish. The only way to perfect this presentation is by learning on the camera. You don’t want to be moving the bait up and down at all, you just want the tail of the ratso twitching. Another tip when fishing these finicky fish, is to use your narrow beam transducer. This is where the lx-5 really shines. I had at times 15-20 fish below me using the wider cone. When you switch to the narrow beam, you are only showing the closest fish on the flasher. This allows you to put your bait in the face of the fish that are right underneath the hole, instead of concentrating on fish that are being picked up on the flasher that are farther away. This really helps me put more fish on the ice!

Even with the above being mentioned, the fish still have to bite. Most of the fish today were only sucking in the tail of the ratso- if you set the hook on the first sign of the spring bobber, you would miss the fish. Letting them move the spring bobber twice, almost tripled your catching rate. Patience is a hard thing to learn with a spring bobber, but if you can be patient, it will pay off big time.

A little on selective harvest. I have not been keeping any fish lately on the wapsi- These fish that we are targeting, are in their wintering holes, and are very easily picked off. When targeting these deeper wintering holes, I would ask that we practice selective harvest carefully. The fish in these holes congregate heavily, and damage could be done very easily if not careful. Please put some back so that we can continue to enjoy great fishing in the state of Iowa.

Again, today was a great day on the ice with you guys- Even though we didn’t “kill them” today will definitely go in the memory books. Mitch and I were doing the yanda slap- and everybody was saying “my ice hole is EMPTY” I haven’t laughed so hard on the ice in a long time! Thanks guys for making this a great day!
At one point I looked around at us all sitting in the truck and said, “wow what a crew we have today, a wanna be fisherman (me), the owner of custom jigs and spins, a NFL football player…” And Yanda and I both say at the same time…”….and Mitch…” Sorry Mitch- it was funny! Your a great guy in my book Mitch- Sometimes it is great to remember that catching fish is only part of the equation- Good friends and laughter go a long way on the ice!

All fish were released!

Good luck- stay safe, and we’ll see you on the hard water!