In the social whirl that is my life, I was busy both early this morning (church and a parish coffee social) and late this afternoon (Eagles Brass Band Christmas concert) but in between I managed to sandwich in three hours of icefishing on Burnett's Pond with Manitron.
The weather was overcast the whole time, and started to snow during the last hour or so. Temps started out around 20 degrees but gradually warmed to 30, and there was about 4 to 4.5 inches of ice.
Manny and I set up a mix of tip ups, a jaw jacker (Manny's), a dead stick (mine) and a jigging rod.
While Manny and I were setting up, a gent from CT named Brian (our only visitor of the day), who was evidently scouting for ice rather than actually icefishing, walked out and chatted for awhile.
As we were yakking, Manny scored early on with a perch on one of his tip ups.
(I believe he caught all of his fish on tip ups today).
Over the course of the day, he caught a half dozen or so more perch, plus one respectable sized (16") pickerel that proved to be the big fish of the day.
For whatever reason, I did not have a single flag, although I eventually landed a dink pickerel on my deadstick, and toward the very end rallied with a half dozen perch on my jig.
In the intervals, Manny and I each smoked a cigar (for the afficionados out there, mine was a Don Lugo while Manny's was a Principe Corona), and I snacked on a light lunch of homemade trail mix (walnuts and cranberries), an apple and half a small bottle of home-made red wine (a blend of cranberry, grape, plum, pomegranate, raspberry, serviceberry and strawberry).
I also passed a little of the time by strapping on my ice skates and taking a couple loops around the Pond.
Meanwhile, Manny served as the photographer for our early season expedition, and said he would post the photos later on, after I did the write up.
We packed up around 2 PM and headed out just as the snow was starting to come down fairly heavily.
