My winter season not been that wonderful this year,although my son and I average 30 - 40 keeper each trip,yesterday late in the day the bite came to life.After a SLOOOW day we put 32 large bulls 8 1/2 - 10 plus inches with 4 crappie around 12 inches.Today the bite was steady to hot with 71 bulls and slabs on the ice at dark. Best baits,I fished a clean Ratso's all day,chartreuse was the ticket,my son used a white and black gill pill w/ waxy,bait did out fish plastic,but I never used it today,he spanked the old man again 44 to 27 but that's OK,we caught some good quality fish today,bulls where big, many in the 9 -9 1/2 range with many fish released over 8 inches.Crappies where decent 10- 11 but threw a lot of them back,this has been the first day above freezing in a long time so think it's the start of some better fishing.This was more like fishing,than work but still had to work them using the plastic.