Pool 9 Early Ice

Finally! After seemingly endless days of weather watching, short distant drive bye’s, & chasing dust bunnies with a vacuum cleaner the time came for some eagerly anticipated early ice action. I started the 09/10 hard water season off in a little known slough etched in the back waters of Pool 9. Despite the recent deep freeze late last week, springs embedded in the shore line were still open which took a lot of the guess work out of the 1st step in this particular area. I was greeted with a rather brittle layer of top ice but more than 3 inches of supportive ice hidden beneath. Packing light it did not take long to shimmy across the frozen wonderland punching a few holes along the shallow breaks along the way.

The 2lb Vanish fell off the real like slow simmered meat does from a bone. With the flick of a finger the bail was closed and the first series of jigging reps were followed with a quick THUD. The first fish of the ice season was none other than a crappie that smacked the free falling Cecil with some authority! The 2nd fish proved to be a quick reminder as to why I let the long Pulsator rods ride the pine on this trip. During the late Fall open water period I was concerned about the number of LMB lurking in the area. Easily 4 to 1 catch ratio versus crappie. Tip-ups rigged with shiners is a pretty common setup for winter folks to lure lunker bass top side in these parts but when the LMB decide to eat panfish jigs….they eat panfish jigs. A 28" medium light rod equipped with a good real is an excellent weapon of choice to even the odds, save some jigs, and eliminate retying efforts.

The LMB were a hoot to play with but not the speices of choose. If they let the Cecil alone long enough a crappie would eventually find it. Given the choice of sorting dimensionally challeged gills or lunker LMB with the crappie’s I wouldn’t have it any other way. Speaking of jigs ~ hats off the inventor of the infamous Lil Cecil. While on this day a slow free falling jigging technique proved to trump color pattern the Cecil is by far the # 1 verticle choice when it comes to this junkie!

Two & half hours later the sun had given up on me and started tucking down behind the ridge line. In all I iced 11 crappie, taking 5 home for the pan, a number of January keeper gills around the 7" mark all of which swim freely today, and countless 12" to 14" LMB with a couple of picture worthy specimens mixed in. The walk off the ice was eventless & fullfilling. Only 4 more months of this to go!