I had a few hours to kill in the evening so I decided to do go out. I was stuck between going to Massy or sticking to a local warmwater pond. After looking at the traffic on the turnpike and anticipating a back up in Merrimack, I decided to stick local. I got set up around 3 and left around 5 or so. While I was setting up, there were these middle school age kids who got onto the ice and started to create a ruckus. They even rolled a tire and started kicking ice chunks in my direction, almost hitting a couple of my tip ups. One of them came up to me and asked me if the ice was safe and I told him brusquely that if we were on it, it was plenty safe. He started swearing and name calling and I acknowledged that I was a little rude since they were paying no mind to me fishing by kicking and pushing stuff in my direction. Not only did he not seem apologetic in the least, he went on to say that it was a public place and he could do what he wanted (expletive filled)
. His friend, fortunately, diffused the situation, wished me luck and they walked away. As I went to set up in my jigging hole, I realized that I forgot my fish finder at home but decided to stick it out. After that, the fishing began, I got a flag and landed a pickerel. After releasing that fish and re-baiting, I started to jig using a simple lift, drop, pause technique and all my strikes came on the pause. After catching and releasing a few crappie, I got another flag (small bass). I continued to jig and catch fish then suddenly, I got another flag. I went over to the tip up to see the line streaming out like it was attached to a runaway freight train! I waited until it slowed down and then I pulled into something I knew was good!
It took me a few minutes to pull it into the hole, I was almost afraid it would break my 12 lb fluoro leader!
I fished on for another 45 mins or so and caught a few crappie including some real slabs. Once it got dark out, I decided to wrap things up and head back. Final stats: 2 bass, 1 pickerel, 10-12 crappie (I really wasn't counting), and 3 misses.
