My first iced fish

[cpierce]

First Iced Fish
Ok, so I finally got out and went ice fishing today. I ran over to Deep Cr since it was fairly close and the morning was half gone already. I got there at about 10:30. There were a few other groups on the ice -- about 5 or 6 altogether.

One guy I talked to said that the bite pretty much quit at about 9 am. That's what I thought too, after all they must eat sometime, and it stands to reason that it is whenever I am not there! I am going to have to get out earlier next time.

The ice was about 14 inches thick and the edges were fairly solid in the early part of the day and softened up in the afternoon.

It seemed pretty slow for everyone that I talked to after that. I even over heard two guys from Utah lamenting about wasting a $12 license on the slow fishing.

I drilled 3 or 4 holes and tried each until I started seeing fish come through on their cruise schedule. I started seeing fish in about 16 feet of water. About every 15 minutes or so a small pod of fish would come through. I got my first fish on the ice with a red and black bugger that I was using for weight.

I caught a few more and missed at least twice as many. They were all about 13 to 16 inches long. Most of those were caught on a red and chartreuse bugger that I usually use for bass fishing. Strange!

The weather was amazing with sun and no wind. It was nice to be out and just enjoy the day. Not a super exciting day of fishing, but definitely relaxing. I about fell asleep!

[Reel trouble]

 Great report  and red and chartreuse has been a good color for us this year too

[cpierce]

The red and chartreuse bugger has caught a lot of pan fish, bass, and trout, but it has usually been when I am fishing lakes for the warm water species.  I always kind of thought the trout I caught with it were just opportunistically grabbing a moving object, or because there were perch minnows in the lake. 

Now I think there is something about that Red/Char combination that attracts most fish anywhere, and I plan on using it more often as a searching pattern.  I might even try it as a streamer in the rivers!! 

Ice fishing is fun and I certainly enjoyed catching my first "ice fishing" fish, and hope to figure out how to catch many more!