Saturday Ice Fishing and Such

Saturday we were up at 5 am getting everything ready for the days fishing trips. Chef and I went into Canton to grab some grub and coffee and then met up with Jake and his crew from Chicago land. We were on the water ice fishing by 7 am and the fish were biting fairly decent. Nothing hot and heavy, but we all got a handful of nice bluegill in the first half hour.

Then the sun came out and thats when the fish just simply closed their mouths. Lock jaw to the utmost degree. I spent the day drilling holes through 14 inches of ice while everyone kept staring at their vexilar screens watching fish follow the baits and not eat. It wasn't a case of just finding the right spot with active fish, that spot just did not exist on Saturday.

Six guys fishing for about 8 hours and we only caught a handful of average bass, a couple really big bluegills, 2 small crappie, and 2 small trout. Hands down the worst day of ice fishing of 2011. Here are a couple pics.



Dale only caught 2 fish all day, but this was a good one!


Chef caught two booners and they are going to the taxidermist for the new Bass Pro Shops coming to town. His good friend also named Todd came out and hung out with us that day on the ice. We didn't catch many fish, but we had a good day!


Joey and his brother Jonathan came out in the afternoon to hang out and try to catch a couple fish. We caught a couple small ones, but what was more impressive was the shed antlers they found at their Fulton County farm earlier in the day!

One thing we had going for us on Saturday was that it was warm outside and the sun was shining! It actually felt really good to just sit outside and feel the warm rays in the middle of the winter! We had alot of time to just kick back and hang out.

About noon I took a gamble and started trying some spots that never really get fished. I searched the deepest depths and shallowest pockets to maybe hopefully find something. Anyhow here is a pic of one of those experiments. This particular spot appealed to me quite a bit since it didnt involve drilling through 14 inches of ice!

I ate alot of snow while sitting out there too. You would be amazed at how refreshing fresh snow tastes while sitting out on a lake all day long with no food around. Anyhow, momma didn't raise no dummy (ya ya ya, I know that can be debateable with some), and to this day I have yet to try the yellow snow.......

One of these days this week the fish are going to turn on and then it will all be over. With this nice warm up the fish will be on fire hopefully sooner rather than later. I am excited about fishing trips on Tues, Wed, and Thurs of this week, but my confidence has been shaken just a bit with such a tough bite over the weekend. Hopefully we can end the year on a good note!