Weekend Results

A few nights worth of rain can really change the angler's perspective on ice fishing and winter in general.  My brother was lucky enough to fish all week long trying several different locations to ice fish, however based on our conversations we were looking at some different real estate to check out which happened to offer colder and more consistent temperatures.  The ice we fished Saturday was 8" thick, and due to the area's colder temperatures the ice was mixed throughout with snow because it had frozen before the last large snowfall.  From the warming temperatures and the rain from Friday we were met with a blanket of fog and I couldn't have been happier.  Aside from an inch of water on the ice it was perfect conditions.

The ponding of water on the ice was simply a matter of putting it back where it belongs, I walked into what I thought looked like the deepest puddles and drilled a hole to free up some ice to move around in.  One thing we avoided was to set a tip-up in those holes that were draining water because all of the silt, dirt, etc that is on top of the ice ends up in those holes and can foul the line and the bait. 

During set-up we missed two fish to dropped bait, then with about half our traps set I found the first bass of the day while my brother and his friend Jordan continued to place our traps.  Since the pond is private we had no set game plan other than covering as much ice as possible.  We all decided if flags were popping more frequently on one end we could always move to that area.  So we always over drill the number of holes even if it is a hand auger.  I'd much rather drill all the holes and the extras and not touch the auger again unless the action is dead.  The reason for this is being quiet. 

If you have ever swam underwater before you know that if someone clicks rocks together the sound travels quite a distance.  So an ice auger, hand or power, the scoop, walking with creepers on all makes a ton of underwater noise.  We would periodically switch what side of the traps we would stand on and the other side's tip-ups would go up.  It happened every time we made the switch.

CT Ice Weekend #2

We are moving into our second "safe" ice weekend in CT, I use "safe" in quotation marks because all lakes freeze at different times due to their locations, which includes many factors.  Things like shelter from wind, mean depth, geographic latitude, lake altitude, proximity to the ocean, currents, underwater springs to name a few greatly change the lake's ability to freeze and stay frozen.  Local knowledge is by far the best factor to take into consideration before setting foot on a frozen pond, lake or river cove.  If you have not personally fished an area on the ice, the best thing to do is ask and take note of where other fishermen access the ice.  Also I always wear Ice Picks, they sit over the shoulder and my jacket has two breast pockets that I zip up the handles into so they do not swing around while I'm drilling holes or setting up tip-ups.

This past weekend I spent two days on a pond near my house.  I have fished it in the summer, however last year's poor/warm winter allowed for only 1 safe weekend on the ice, which I did not get to fish as I was fishing Lake Champlain in VT. 
This past Saturday I spent as a recon mission with only an auger, a dozen jigs, and a jigging rod.  I drilled holes around 75% of the perimeter looking for fish & structure fishing each hole for roughly 20 minutes then continuing on to new sets of holes.  My arms were dead after drilling close to 100 holes.  The information I gained from exerting so much energy was invaluable and interesting.  I was able to witness the pond's ice formation daily, then once on the ice I could see and measure thicknesses of the ice in various parts of the pond. During my trek around the pond, I only managed one perch, however returning to the holes with structure nearing the sunset period I was able to pick-off another 6 perch as I was no longer casting a hard shadow and making significantly less noise. 
On Sunday, I used the info I collected and setup tip-ups with live minnows around the structure I had found the day before.  Along with my brother, we set out ten traps using his underwater camera to pinpoint weed beds and sunken logs/rock piles, and had a consistent pick of pickerel and jigged up some perch as well.  I was hoping to locate some bass, but that will have to be another day.

This weekend I'm heading to a different pond with 3 other anglers, that I have fished before, it is private and gets little to no pressure so I'm hoping to see a better catch rate and quality in the fish.  We'll see how it goes tomorrow....

-M