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