Your first ice fishing experience.......

[nicksmurf111]

My roommates and I took a bunch of girls that we hung out with in college to their friend's camp.  We stayed the night and fished just about the entire next day...caught quite a few walleye.  I packed way too much stuff that I didn't need (tent, coleman gas stove, extra food, kettle when I should have just bought tackle) and the groaning of the ice kind of made me paranoid.  We did play a game of football on the ice.  The only part that was odd for me was not having running water at camp, and nobody woke up to tend the wood stove...finally just woke up and helped myself.  Learning how to fish tip-ups wasn't really a big deal.

[Sandcountrylivin]

I already shared my first ice experience. Since my second outing was pretty comical I figure I will share it here. My second outing probably came 8 years after my first. Me and my younger brother took an old Christmas gift hand auger and bought 2 jig poles and some waxies and headed to lake Winnebago in his Dodge Ram we called "the dog". The auger had never seen the ice but had clearly seen some kind of action because it was uselessly dull. My brother spun the handle as I put all my weight on it. It took us over an hour to drill through 30"+ of ice, and the you couldn't even look down the hole and see the bottom of the ice it was such a crooked snaking hole! We settled for one hole to be fished by the both of us. We threw up his turkey blind, weighted it down with whatever we could find in the back of his truck and each threw a boot on it he skirt for good measure. The good Lord must have got a kick out of us greenhorns that day because all of a sudden we had a big tug on our lines and we both started reeling. I can't even remember who's bait you he fish had in his mouth, we were a tangled mess. But we pulled out a jumbo slob perch. I have been hooked since that day.

[perchnut]

I grew up on a lake in Wisc.  and have been ice fishing for as long as I can remember....We almost always had a permy out on the lake, and thats where we spent lots of time watching and catching perch.  Fished the bigger lakes for walleyes, as well.  Driving the truck out on the lake, grilling polish sausage and running and sliding on the glare ice are some mighty fine memories.....Thanks Dad!!

[captain54]

I was very young 6 or 7. Lake Erie Presque Isle bay in Pennsylvania. We caught giant perch in the 1.5-2 lb range. I was fascinated looking down the hole a seeing thousands of smelt run under the ice,some even got trapped in the hole. I switched to smelt fishing ripping 2 or 3 as soon as the bait got under the ice. I soon had a couple hundred frozen smelt lying on the ice.

[SDJohnson]

It was January of 1994 and I was 16.  My dad didn't ice fish and out of boredom a buddy and I went to a local pond and chipped through the ice with a spud bar and caught an absolute mess of Bluegill on a homemade rods.  I was hooked!  My 7 years old son has been joining me on the ice now for the last three years and I'm so thankful to spend time sharing this great activity with him.  Who would've thought that a boring Saturday afternoon would lead to such a crazy obsession. 

[IceAddict87]

Although not my first time it was the first time i went with the expectation of catching fish. Went to Mille Lacs for a buddy's bachelor party in 2014, stayed in sleeper shacks. Asked the lady who checked us in how the walleye bite was, she said that we might as well forget about catching any walleye and that the bite had been real tough. long story short we had 1 vex for the five of us and we drank more beer than anybody should, we didnt catch a single fish the entire weekend. When i came back to iowa i was determined to catch fish through the ice. I got a vex and an auger, used my hunting blind a shack, froze my ass off most days since i really had no idea what i was doing. Since then I have acquired tons of equipment and maybe some knowledge too. I really don't open water fish that much anymore, ice fishing is way more fun but because i live on the edge of the ice belt winters are a bit unpredictable and the past 3 winters have been pretty poor for ice fishing.

Here's to a good hard winter!!!!