IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Illinois => Ice Fishing Illinois => Topic started by: zcm_82 on Jan 31, 2023, 05:07 PM
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Found 3" of solid clear on a couple ponds after work today, so I gave one of them a sit for about an hour and a half.
The bite was not bad... not a hot bite by any means, but better than I figured I would have in the middle of a cold snap. I ended up getting 9 gills, and what might be the smallest largemouth bass I've ever caught in my entire life.
(https://i.postimg.cc/mPTN3cpk/IMG-20230131-142631.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/mPTN3cpk)
(https://i.postimg.cc/56Vw1YVg/IMG-20230131-152537.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/56Vw1YVg)
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Went back to the same pond for about another 90 minutes this afternoon with little man. Ice was 3.5-3.75" today, but the bite was much slower.
I only caught a few small gills, but the kiddo pulled one decent gill and a really nice crappie right before we packed it in for the day.
(https://i.postimg.cc/c6nY0q1B/IMG-20230201-170626.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/c6nY0q1B)
(https://i.postimg.cc/rKTdTKPq/IMG-20230201-162343.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/rKTdTKPq)
(https://i.postimg.cc/xkknQ81g/IMG-20230201-161823.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/xkknQ81g)
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Took the boys (8 & 10) out today. The 8-yr-old was Crappie King, taking wins in first fish, last fish, Most fish, and biggest fish @ 13". And he was the only one fishing without a flasher!
3.75" of ice.
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Nice :thumbsup: That was the only crappie for us. There's not a whole lot of them in the pond we were fishing. It's mostly a gill and largemouth pond. There are a few crappies, catfish, and walleye in there, though.
I'm gonna hit it again solo after work today. Tomorrow is the last forecast cold day, and the ice is going to burn off fast with forecast highs in the 40s + rain in the 10 day.
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Fished again from 2-6pm. Ended up with 45 between the 4 of us. Fish were in a foul mood! Fished ALL my favorite lures today. Caught about 1-2 fish on each of them. Saturday will be my next (last?) chance to get out.
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Same here, I have errands to run after work today, so tomorrow will likely be my last day out, too.
I fished from 2-4pm yesterday. It was 44° at 2 and the ice was SOFT... it had thinned back down to 3" and the top inch was fairly mushy. The bite was pretty decent from 2-330, but it was pretty much another dinkfest. Right around 3:30 it was just like switching off the lights... fish were still there, but they just went down to the bottom and wouldn't touch anything I put in front of them. Ended up catching an even 10 gills and one little largemouth.
(https://i.postimg.cc/LJsLbSZT/IMG-20230202-144204.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/LJsLbSZT)
(https://i.postimg.cc/KKGGNckG/IMG-20230202-145254.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/KKGGNckG)
(https://i.postimg.cc/ftS671KW/IMG-20230202-142523.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/ftS671KW)
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4 inches of ice on the small pond i fished yesterday. caught 6 nice gills and some bass, didnt keep any
not a lot of marks and things shut down around 2 pm, 0 marks last hour plus. i think every gill i caught came on a different lure
hopefully i can get on some bigger water saturday
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Good stuff ZCM, glad to see you getting out.
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Good stuff ZCM, glad to see you getting out.
Thanks, it's been a poor season down here, no ice for the first 4 weeks of this year, and likely over in a couple days.
I think altogether between this freeze and the one in December we'll have had maybe 10 days of walkable ice :-\
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Strange year all around for sure, check out the Winni vid on the NH page... It's below zero and we're losing ice. Good times lol
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Thankfully the wind laid down here a few days or we wouldn't have ice right now. It was pretty breezy yesterday, and tomorrow is supposed to be flat out gusty, but I'll be hitting it regardless.
Hardly any trees around here, so fishing in the wind is pretty much a lifestyle :roflmao: That's part of why I use a fish house most of the time, even when it's fairly warm. I hate fighting wind.
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Saturday was the toughest bite yet. Cleaned 11. It was so hard to get anything to bite. The takers were few and far between. Had to cut the trip short when the second kid stepped in a hole and nearly lost their boot! In their defense, the holes were hard to see with black ice and water on top. Ice was getting sketchy anyway, so we quit around 445.
I put most of my gear away for the year. If we get lucky enough to have more ice, I will happily dig it back out!
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Saturday was absolute garbage for me. I took little man out for about 3 hours in the morning I landed one lousy gill, and he got the skunk. Could see fish swimming around, but everything was glued to the bottom and wouldn't bite. That wind made for a miserable setup and takedown, too.
(https://i.postimg.cc/XrkqK6p0/IMG-20230204-075326.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/XrkqK6p0)
(https://i.postimg.cc/XGpv0ZxV/IMG-20230204-075317.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/XGpv0ZxV)
I think the season is over here, unless we get a really drastic cold snap later in the month that gives us a last short round of ice. It was 49° yesterday afternoon, and it's mostly afternoon highs in the 40s in the 10 day forecast. It's 41° and pretty breezy presently.
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Yeah, this was the worst season I've had in a LONG time. The good news is that I only ALMOST pulled the trigger on a new tent this year. Maybe next year!
My Shappell 3000 and I have been together now for 25 years! It's roomy by meself, two adults are cozy, but the kids are big enough that the 3 of us just can't function well anymore.
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This hasn't been the worst season I can recall, but definitely hasn't been good. We had one 4 or 5 years ago where there was only 3 or 4 days of walkable ice all winter, then there was a year in the late 2000s where we never got any ice at all around here... 2007-09...somewhere in there.
I have a DX3000, too. This is my 5th season or so with it. I mostly fish by myself, so it works great for me. The bungees on both ends of the frame snapped this winter though, so I'm going to have to replace those. Nowhere local has anything that long, so I'll have to make a run up to the city to find some soon. I want to get that taken care of before I put it away for the summer and forget about it.