Illinois > Ice Fishing Illinois

First fish of 2023

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zcm_82:
Thankfully the wind laid down here a few days or we wouldn't have ice right now. It was pretty breezy yesterday, and tomorrow is supposed to be flat out gusty, but I'll be hitting it regardless.

Hardly any trees around here, so fishing in the wind is pretty much a lifestyle  :roflmao: That's part of why I use a fish house most of the time, even when it's fairly warm. I hate fighting wind.

Arquero3d:
Saturday was the toughest bite yet.  Cleaned 11.  It was so hard to get anything to bite. The takers were few and far between.  Had to cut the trip short when the second kid stepped in a hole and nearly lost their boot!  In their defense, the holes were hard to see with black ice and water on top.  Ice was getting sketchy anyway, so we quit around 445.

I put most of my gear away for the year.  If we get lucky enough to have more ice, I will happily dig it back out!

zcm_82:
Saturday was absolute garbage for me. I took little man out for about 3 hours in the morning  I landed one lousy gill, and he got the skunk. Could see fish swimming around, but everything was glued to the bottom and wouldn't bite. That wind made for a miserable setup and takedown, too.





I think the season is over here, unless we get a really drastic cold snap later in the month that gives us a last short round of ice. It was 49° yesterday afternoon, and it's mostly afternoon highs in the 40s in the 10 day forecast. It's 41° and pretty breezy presently.

Arquero3d:
Yeah, this was the worst season I've had in a LONG time.  The good news is that I only ALMOST pulled the trigger on a new tent this year.  Maybe next year!

My Shappell 3000 and I have been together now for 25 years!  It's roomy by meself, two adults are cozy, but the kids are big enough that the 3 of us just can't function well anymore.

zcm_82:
This hasn't been the worst season I can recall, but definitely hasn't been good. We had one 4 or 5 years ago where there was only 3 or 4 days of walkable ice all winter, then there was a year in the late 2000s where we never got any ice at all around here... 2007-09...somewhere in there.

I have a DX3000, too. This is my 5th season or so with it. I mostly fish by myself, so it works great for me. The bungees on both ends of the frame snapped this winter though, so I'm going to have to replace those. Nowhere local has anything that long, so I'll have to make a run up to the city to find some soon. I want to get that taken care of before I put it away for the summer and forget about it.

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