Ice Fishing Finally!!!

Normally I am the first one of the year to get out and find some marginally safe ice......this year I have been hearing reports and getting text messages of people catching fish for the last 10 days and yet still hadnt made it onto the ice until yesterday after church.....


The free time I have had in the past to hardcore fish just simply isnt there any longer, but teaching my kids how to have fun outside I simply wouldnt trade for anything in the world....Everything changes about hunting and fishing when the focus is on entertaining and teaching as opposed to catching and harvesting..... With ice fishing for example, drilling and scooping out holes is their favorite thing to do, I drilled many extra holes we had no intention of fishing in, just say they could clean em out....Just simply walking on a lake and exploring and asking millions of questions is an adventure for them....

Then in terms of catching fish, we had just a few minutes to locate and reel in a few fish before feet and hands would be too cold to endure comfortably....Mae lost the first big one, but then landed this catfish all by herself with just about 2 minutes left on comfort clock....


Then mom pulled the kids back inside and I had one hour to locate and check on my favorite ice fishing spots....

Smallmouth bass we dont catch through the ice very often, but did today!


Big bluegill is my main target ice fishing and I found my favorite trees holding a few:


Crappie is a bonus in this lake:


Then catching BIG FISH through the ice is our specialty....We found a school of large channel catfish in 21' of water out in the exact center of the lake...This same catfish hole is chuck full of catfish all winter long.... I had to break the spiny fins of this monster catfish to fit it through the hole...





For those of you thinking ice fishing isnt exciting, you need to come and give it a try....
We only fished the catfish hole for 30 minutes and loaded up on em:





So anyhow, we got terrible ice fishing weather coming up and I am hoping that the ice is still safe on Wednesday. If the forecast holds true, that could potentially be our last day on the ice for quite some time....I am planning on fishing in Princeville all day long on Wednesday on intensively managed 35 acres of private water...We are harvesting as many bluegill and crappie as we can catch, with a good shot at wall hanger trophy largemouth bass...

Anyhow we have 12 vexilars and 2 hummingbird flashers and only 7 of them are spoken for on Wednesday....Call me up at 309-303-5691 if you want to book a trip for Wednesday, if the ice is still very safe and the fish which should be on fire are indeed on fire you will go home with a 5 gallon bucket full of the most tastiest panfish on the planet...I wont be cleaning them for you on Wednesday though, cause I got tickets to the Illini vs Minnesota basketball game....