The Good Kind of Hard Water

ICE FISHING TIME! A lot of the lakes iced up the past few weeks, and have hit safe-ice conditions. I made a solo trip to Mantua Reservoir this morning to try and get some Perch and Blue Gill for dinner tonight. A friend of mine fished it on Saturday with his boy and killed it, catching over 40 fish between them!

 

I arrived around 8 a.m. to about 10 trucks already parked along the south road. So much for no body fishing on Mondays. I was so surprised to see that many people out on the ice today. Most people were fishing out in the middle. Luckily, no one was where I wanted to fish. I made my way over to my spot, and drilled my first two holes. The second my jig hit the bottom there was action. I set the hook and had my first fish on which turned out to be a nice sized perch. I got him off the hook and immediately sent the jig to the bottom again. Same thing as before, and I soon had my second perch on the ice! It was a blazing fast start to the day, and it stayed that way for the first hour. I landed several nice perch and bluegill during this time. I even had a Rainbow Trout take my jig off the bottom.

 

 

I basic map of Mantua Reservoir.

There were a lot of people that had the same idea I had...

My first stop produced for about an hour.

Once the first stop slowed, I moved about 30 yards away and drilled two more holes. This spot is where I caught the biggest perch and gills of the day. I was really impressed with the size of the fish. They are way bigger on average than last year. I kept 25 of the 52 fish I landed today; 12 Bluegill, 12 Perch and one Rainbow. White was the color that worked today, and I fished in 10-12 feet of water the whole time. I left around 1 p.m.

I filleted the fish, and fried them up for my wife and I. I went the easy route, and just used a Cajun fish fry mix I bought at Cabelas. It was better than I expected, so I think I'll be using it from now on. it saves have to pull everything out to make a batter yourself. I love fishing the first few weeks that the ice sets up. It seems that the fish are always more willing to eat than later in the ice fishing season.

This is one chunky perch!

The Perch needed to go on a diet, so I put him on mine...

The keepers, minus one gill.

 

Dinner tasted great!

Schooled By An 8 Year Old

I met back up with rob to see if we could replicate the fast fishing of a week ago. This trip Rob brought his son Matt and I brought a friend that had never been ice fishing before. We arrived at the lake at dark o'clock got set up and as always, Matt had fish on the ice before I could even sit down in my chair! We got a quick picture and then he had a rainbow on the ice before I had my camera put away. Not to long after that my friend Ryan landed his first rainbow through the ice and I later found out that was also his first catch ever which was fun to see. The fishing slowed to a creep after that with fish here and there. It was nothing like the fast action we had last week.
A high note for me on the trip was catching a new personal best for green sunfish that went 8". As I was feeling good about my sunfish, Matt walks over to me with a 15" rainbow he had just landed and says "8 inches huh?" as he looks down at his fish with a smirk. He then walks away with me realizing I just got put in my place by a trash talking 8 year old! I laughed because there wasn't much I could say. He caught more fish than any of us! We also caught some bluegill and a few small perch for a 4 species day on the ice. Although the fishing wasn't as fast as we had hoped, it was a fun getting out on the ice again.

Matt's first fish of many.
Ryan's first ever catch.

Matt and Rob with some keeper bows.

Ryan's first bluegill.

Great shot Ryan took.

My new personal best; 8 inch sunfish

Decent sized bluegill going 9 inches.

Who Says Hard Water Is Bad?

I got up bright and early this morning to meet up with my friend Rob to hit the hard water for the first time this season! we made it to the lake and we out fishing at around 7 am. I always forget how much I like to ice fish until that first fish hits my bait and the fight is on. We both slayed them today! the first hour and a half I we couldn't get our second poles going because the fish wouldn't stay off long enough to get them set up. We caught lots of rainbow trout and blue gill with a few yellow perch mixed in. The trout went 14-16", Bluegills were 6-8" and the perch we kept went 9". We were using Jammin Jigs tipped with maggots. Pink and white jigs were the ticket. I couldn't think of a better way to start off the ice season. We kept a few to eat but released the majority of them. Guess what I'll be doing next week? until then...

Rob getting set up

We were not alone on this cold but beautiful day.

A few for the frying pan.