Fished 4 lakes in Mazonia North Friday from 7:00 till 3:00. Warm temps & cloudy with rain in the afternoon. Started out on Clear Lake with a very, very tough bite. Drilled lots of holes and opened and fished lots of old holes and found very few fish and even fewer biters. Jim managed to ice 1 small bass, 1 real nice, 8” bluegill, and 1 bullhead and only had a couple other bites while I only had two bites and brought 1 13” bass on fop. We just weren’t even marking fish and the few we did mark were very inactive and didn’t even want to look at our offerings. I fished for over an hour and a dozen holes before I even marked my first fish. Fished 4 FOW to 18 FOW in and around weeds. Tried various lures and colors and nothing we tried got them to move. Around 9:00 we jumped into another small pond off Clear and found biters immediately but they were all dinks. Caught around 15 gills between us, marked lots of fish, took lots of coaxing to get them to bite. Fished several holes in different spots and all produced dinks, 3” to 4” with 1, 5” gill the largest. Moved on after about a ˝ hr and left Clear Lake. Talked to several other anglers on the way out and they were all having a tough day. Didn’t talk to anyone who had put any fish on the ice. Hit up another small pond for crappie with no success. Jim only had one weak bite and it was the only fish we marked between the two of us. Around noon Jim headed home and I made a long Trek into another small pond. Deep, wet snow and hills made this a long hard pull and after a ˝ hike, I finally arrived at my destination. Started in a weedy cut and drilled 7 holes every 25 ft all the way across the lake to a weedy point covering water from 4 ft to 18 ft deep. Marked a few fish in the first hole in weeds but couldn’t get them to bite. Second hole Found aggressive fish and it was game on with very aggressive fish. 5 FOW, sparse weeds, fish appealed as soon as I dropped my jig in the hole and met it 3 ft down. A fish every drop. They were mostly on the smaller size, 4” to 6” but Scratched out a few 7 “ – 7 ˝” fish. Fish were very aggressive. Caught many on plastic alone but due to their smaller size, a single waxie helped to catch them quicker. At 12:30, a steady, light rain began with intermittent harder showers. I moved in search of bigger fish and to cheek the other holes to see if I had found a pocket of fish or they were on a bite in this lake. Marked fish, found aggressive biters in every hole I checked. As the water got deeper, fish were suspended higher up. In 15ft and 18 ft of water fish were suspended from 5’ tom 10’ off the bottom. As I moved shallower again fish remained suspended 5; to 3 ‘ below the ice. Water had a very dark, green color to it. Tried three different color combinations and they all caught fish equally well. Ended the day with 70 gills, two small bass and one very big crappie from this pond. Kept them in a bucket of water for a pic and returned them all unharmed. After fishing for 2 ˝ hrs in the rain I made the long trek back through deep, wet , snow. Returned to my vehicle at 3:10, coat and bibs soaking wet, calves burning, back aching, but I had found and caught fish.
Couple pics of from the day. Didn’t take many because of the rain and second one was blurred from the rain.
