Today I took a trip to Pelham Lake in Rowe.
I arrived a little after 10 AM and left at 5 PM.
The weather was lovely - - sunny, blue skies, with temps in the 25 to 30 degree range, albeit a bit windy (20 to 25 mph in the morning, but dying off to about half that in the afternoon).
There were 10 inches of good hard white ice on the pond, with about an inch on encrusted snow on top in spots.
During the course of the day, there were three or four other parties on the pond - - not counting the bald eagle that was flying around.
Overall, the fishing was pretty slow - - the only ones who seemed to have much in the way of action were a father/son team fishing the "left front" of the pond (viewed from the road), and even they seemed to be catching mostly just small pickerel.
I spent a fair amount of my time chatting to Ron A (who I met at the pond 2-3 years ago, and make a point of talking to when I fish it once a year)- - who had set up five tip ups on the "right front" of the pond, and would periodically walk across the road from his house to check on them.
About 45 minutes after I arrived, I caught a big sun fish jigging, and managed to land a couple small perch the same way later in the day.
Early on, I had a few wind flags, as well as a handful of "legitimate" ones that didn't amount to much - - the fish either dropped the bait or ripped it off the hook without taking much line, or (on a couple other occasions) dragged the line into the weeds but then let the shiner go without even bruising it.
Finally, around 3 PM or so, a flag went off and line went whizzing off the reel, so that I thought I had a "big one" on.
But when I finally brought in the 30 or 40 feet of line, what I found on the other end proved to be a rather unimpressive 13" or 14" pickerel.
Fortunately, just as I was picking up the very last of my equipment a few minutes before 5 PM, my dead stick produced a hefty 20" pickerel.
