Took two aspirin and got on the ice at 8:30 a little disappointed that they only had a half a cup of perch bait left by the time I got there, said they'd had quite a flush this morning... Pretty warm out there and no wind at all until I quit at 2:00.
There's about 5" of snow on the ice, not too bad for walking. I drilled a hole as soon as I was away from the launch and found 16+ inches of good hard ice and felt brave enough to go to my honey hole. BUT, beware! The ice changed a lot in 200 yards, my second hole only had about 8" of ice and that was soft, the auger went through in only a couple of turns. But, I set up there, not really my favorite spot but I left room for the Quebecers who walked out with me. They walked a couple of miles trying to find a school but came back to sit with me with only two in their pail, only one of which I would have kept, but accepted their gracious offer.
There were a couple of other guys out there, too. You can barely see them in the picture when you click on it.
The bite was VERY slow, nothing at all for the first half hour, then started getting those little 6 inchers and they continued to the point of frustration so I switched over to eyeballs and got a couple bigger ones and then they were steady for a couple of hours with lots of good sized ones and an equal amount of little ones. Ended up with a couple of dozen for supper.
The bite was slow, slowest for me in many years. I tried everything and kept mixing up the presentation and my jig technique but they wouldn't bite so I figured there was a big fish down there. I let out another wrap of line and hit the bottom, felt like a metal pipe, I kept banging my big silver spoon on it but then the sound changed and I thought I'd better be careful or I would hook a tree limb and lose my spoon. Bam!! Thought for sure I was snagged on a branch and then this came storming up through and flopped on the snow and spit the hook out. She straightened it and I was surprised my little 6 lb test leader didn't snap. Good fun but I put her back in to put some more weight on, maybe next year we'll meet again.
I mentioned I took two aspirin before heading out. I've had hip pain for many years but the Covid really did a job on me, apparently it exacerbates whatever ailment you might have, including osteoarthritis. Wish I could drive out but it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon...
