Mogli, his girl friend and I met up at North Pond in Savoy a little after 10 AM today, and headed out toward the back center of the pond.
The weather was mostly cloudy, blustery (gusts up to 30 to 40 mph most of the day, an picking up even further later in the afternoon), with temps in the low to mid 20's, and flurries in the afternoon.
I was afraid we'd be walking thru a foot or more of slush (and prepared for it by wearing my waders), but fortunately the "crust" on top of it was thick enough to hold us up, although drilling holes was a bit of a process.
First, we had to drill down thru the crust and into the slush, then shovel it out, before drilling through another foot of ice.
We set up some tip ups, but needn't have bothered, since we only had one legitimate flag (but no fish) the entire day - - although we did have lots of wind flags.
I walked back to my car and retrieved my "chuck wagon" and started cooking lunch right around noon.
The menu: corned beef with potatoes and cabbage, sea food chowder and three types of Irish beer (Guiness stout, Smithwick's Red Ale
and Harp Lager) to drink, then an apple to cleanse the palate, and a pot of hot coffee (with cream and sugar) and cookies for dessert.
After lunch, we started jigging in earnest, and ended up doing pretty well.
We all caught fish - - and our final tally was two rainbows (one 12" and one 13"), one (11") brook trout and two (3") sunfish.
I got the multi-species prize (and only catch on a tip up) of the day when I hauled up a cray fish that refused to release my shiner.
We started picking up a little after 4 PM, and were off the ice and on our way home a little before 5 PM.