On The Ice

I have been out twice on the ice.  The ice is about 4-5" and solid.  It does have a foot of snow on it but with the temperatures below 30 for the month, the ice is solid.  I first went to Portage Lake and had trouble with my gas ice auger.  It has a cracked gas tank and I used epoxy to fix it.  I found out the epoxy doesn't do well on some plastics!  It still leaked so I used my hand auger. I tried to order a new gas tank but it is out of stock for a week.   It only took a few minutes to drill throught the ice with my hand auger.  Then I used my strainer to clear away some of the ice shavings in the hole.  I pulled the top over my ice shanty and dropped in two fishing lines.

Here I am snug in my small ice shanty and waiting for a bite.  I only managed to catch two dink perch.  That means they were small! 

The next day I decided to try a small lake in Brethern.  As I arrived I noticed that there were no fisherman on the small lake.  I did see some tracks and an ice skating area shoveled off so I though "Ok, I'll give it a try".

I walked out 15 feet and drilled a hole to check the ice.  It was a solid 5" so it was ok to proceed.  The snow was starting to fall.  I went out about 40 yards and drilled two holes.  I was using my new Velixar fish finder.  It works pretty neat.  You turn on the unit and put the floating transducer into the hole.  It shows the bottom asa large group of red and orange bands and you can see your lure descending as a small green line.  Fish will show as red lines.  You can see the fish (red) move up towards your lure/bait (green).  it is almost like a video game.

I was using new gear so I wanted to practice.  I could see several fish on bottom and I slowely lower the lure down to just above the fish (red/orange).  I felt a tap and lifted the rod.  Fish on!

I did manage to catch about 6 blue gills that were rather small.  I released them all.  It was just nice to break the sense of cabin fever with a day on the ice.

With the ice shanty top all the way down, it really protects you from the wind and cold.  I didn't need my gloves inside.  If the sun is shinning, the black cover heats up the small space to a comfortable temperature.  Today was not a sunny day!  It was in the low 20s and the snow was coming down. I saw two other fisherman come out on the lake.

This what it was like outside!  See the other fisherman in the background?  I don't know how he could stand being out in this snow storm fishing.

Well, today it is sunny but 16 degrees out. I may get out for a little while to scout a few other lakes.

 'Up North' where the people walk on water!