Yoda would say, "Ashamed, I am". After bragging yesterday in rebuttal to some guys lamenting the poor pike fishing this year that I could always get some by the red rocks south of the Tabor Point access ramp I set out to prove my point. Sigh. "Not to be, it was."
Got on the ice at the usual time but she didn't have any big bait at the market, only some "walleye bait", twice now that I didn't get the bait I wanted. But, I planned to jig for some tiny perch anyway. Tried to set some tip-ups along the rocks in about 2-3 feet of water but my old Jiffy 3.0 was acting up, would only idle, no top end. Drilled one hole with my old 8" hand auger but the ice was much thicker (10") and harder there than I expected. So I just ran the Jiffy by pumping the primer which seemed to work. Put in 8 tip-ups, half with the walleye bait and the rest with little perch. I filled a pail with little ones until about noon when everything stopped. Bam! Lost a pike at the hole on a big minnow on my jig stick so I knew they were down there. A few minutes later I had a flag but by the time I got to it it had run off half the spool in the direction of the shore. I was afraid I'd get snagged in there and sure enough the fish got down behind some tree limbs and so it was a chore to get it out but finally I got it headed for the hole but there was so much line out that I lost it. Sigh.
Anyway, you can see how close I got to the rocks.
Some of the same guys as usual were out there but when they came by they said they didn't get anything either. I was the last man off the ice at 2:00. Better luck next time, I hope.
