Mississippi River Pool 8 Valentines Ice Report

By bret_clark 0

After spending three weeks on road trips and long hauls across the ice, which by the way were all a blast, it was time to just sit down and fish. Mike C and I both agreed to target a community hole in search of Crappies and gills for a Daytona 500 fish fry Also Jake, a great friend from SE Wisconsin was making a trip this way for his first ice fishing outing. When taking a newbie to the ice it pays to do your best to provide some action regardless of the size fish being caught, that was another reason for hitting this community area. If the first trip for a person to the ice is spent all day looking at line hanging straight down into an open ice hole wondering if there is anything down there……it’s going to be a long day and it might make it tough to convince the newbie he’s having fun It was also great to have good friend Jeff Jensen join in on the fun along with a surprise and short visit from Cade.

With the StrikeMaster Lazer Mag lit on fire, holes were melted away at the first stop of the day by 6:30AM in a hurry. The set up had the LX-5’s looking like we were on top of Christmas trees. With Mike C and Jake set up in a two man and by just listening to them, I knew Jake was having a ball This ambush landed us on top of a pile’a gills in 12-18fow. A large number of them were only 6 inches with a few iffy’s and a keeper now and then. Ever spot we did set up on was holding gills, even the deep abyss had gills suspended from 5-20 feet below the ice. Bright colors with a waxie produced pannies for me all day. After beating up on this pod of fish a move was made hoping to find crappies and maybe something a little bigger. Same story, in short order there was some hootin’ n laughing going on as Mike had Jake on fish I should ask too…how is it fishing without a flasher buddy Mike? Or should I say….isn’t that LX-5 a blast to fish with Jake

We did spread out on the second move, Mike and Jake were on gills and found 9 inch perch hugging bottom in 18fow. Jeff Jensen found the same about 50 some yards away while my set up in 22-25fow water landed on top of 9-10 crappies. Again nothing big but there was some good action. Just as Mr. Jensen thought he had enough and was packed up I nailed 4 crappies, 2 keepers at ten and 2 too grow. This made him put the brakes on and think a bit. This is when he laid down and stuck his face right into my MarCum In short order a vertical trolling for crappies lesson was learned and Jeff was back to fishing. Jeff Jensen sure caught his share of pannies and could have walked off with a fish fry but instead played catch and release for the day. I was going to keep only a dozen but due to size took 17, a nice mix of gills and crappies, Mike and Jake took a selected Daytona fish fry home too.

My hats off to Custom Jigs and Spins for producing some of the finest baits. As mentioned for the gills brite was the ticket. The clown gill pill, orange ratfinkee and hot orange ratso had a number of gills in a frenzy.

The silver hot green slender spoon or a pink/glow brite demon jig both tipped with a minnow head were the only two baits needed to pull marks making the crappies charge to 8 feet only to inhale the bait before there prey could get away One more move was made before calling it quits producing the same results.

What a great way to spend Valentines Day…to this I must thank my honey

Good laughs, great friends, and easy fishing…..how could it get better I believe Mike C took some pictures also, make sure to share Mike

Good luck fishing people

0 Comments

  2. It was funny finding out it was your birthday yesterday Bret. It falls on the same day as my fathers. Dad never hit the ice yesterday so it was great to be able to fish with another grey haired guy
    The trip north was a much needed day. Like yourself, the last few weeks have been about searching different areas while trying to locate untapped fish. Not a ton of luck but much water was at least eliminated.
    Great school of fish buddy! The way these fish were scattered out in the column was crazy. Catching gills five feet below the ice all the way down to the bottom. Crappies constantly coming through at the mid depth range.How fun was that?
    Yep, just about packed it in until Bret made a small depth move and was back in the action. That was fun watching you work those specks so it was easy to set back up and to do a little copy catting.
    My best bait was a pink and white cecil with a minnow head for the crappies and a gold diamond jig for the gills. After a while it was fun to see how certain schools reacted to your offerings. One school would zoom in, get a couple lookers and poof…..gone. The next pod would follow suit and all of a sudden you would have two or three fighting over your bait. Thanks again Bret, that was a very enjoyable, relaxing day. It was also nice not having to get the fillet knife out when I got home. Catching was the theme for the day, dinner was a quick drive through burger
    As always, nice to see Mike C again along with his friend Jake. As Bret mentioned, alot of chatter going on in that shack. Good seeing Cade again too, fun chatting with you Cade, too bad you had to split so early.

  3. Hey great day on the ice buddy Bret, especially seeing as how it was your birthday – young man. Always good to spend time on the ice with fellow IDO’ers Jeff and Cade. Jake had a great time and took home a nice fish fry to share with Debbi and the girls. I think we may have him hooked on it as he was asking a lot of questions the whole day about the finer points of ice fishing – which I tried to answer. It was different fishing without the LX-5 but I did take a peek at it once in a while to see what depth the fish were at to set my slip knot. It didn’t take Jake long to master the use of that fine piece of equipment. I sure wish I could have landed that pike. Jake said I was battling it for 14 minutes before it spit the hook. That was a test of patience with that light tackle but at least I didn’t break off.
    The attached pictures of a bass Jake landed and which put up a pretty good battle on my St.Croix that he was using. The other is of a couple of the gills he caught for his fish fry It sure was a blast getting someone new interested in one of my favorite pastimes – ice fishing. Great day guys.

  5. Thanks for the report Bret . Also those are some dandy fish they will definatly make some fine “censored” .sorry inside joke…

  6. Great report! Nice looking fish. Glad to see there is still some fish to be caught through the hard water. Things got a little messy down in southeast Iowa when we had that warm spell, but things are freezing again with the colder water.

  11. Sorry I had to leave so early guys, I had to work at 3.. I must say I had a hard time deciding where to go after not much activity on the Lake, but I’m glad I made the voyage to that area. I didn’t catch anything nice but catching a lot of fish was much needed for me..Its like the fish decided to die just like the economy Nice talking with you Jeff, Bret, and Mike and it was good to see your friend out there, he sounded like he was having a good time.

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