Late Ice Outing

Finding a good ice bite in recent weeks has been about as difficult as bouncing up Mt. Everest on a pogo stick in my neck of woods. Marking fish – not so difficult it takes a lot of beer batter to bring out the flavor in a mark! Multiple trips to the ice in the past few days and it didn’t take a set of bifocals to see this pattern has changed! The first sign of this behavioral change came when a 10” Mississippi crappie smacked my offering on the way DOWN the column. Unlike the past several weeks in which a person had to jig and tease and plead a fish to follow your presentation back UP the column in hopes of generating a strike. The second clue to a change was a little success with what I refer to as the sampler platter approach. By this I mean hoping between 5 or 6 strategically placed holes AND change up presentations frequently. The use of no knot fas snaps trims the bait changing time down to mere seconds for those of you that don't have umpteen ice rods snuggled against the outside of 5 gal bucket within arms reach. My cycle of baits included a color variety of tipped Diamond jigs & baitless Lil Cecil’s from Custom Jigs & Spins & BFishN Tackle. Some people lay claim that jig color doesn’t matter. Some days this may hold true, but on others it may not. When you drop a jig and pull a fast mark but don’t generate a strike the sampler platter method calls for a quick change in jigs and another drop. Often times....Bang! Fish on. Drop the same bait again – fast mark but not a taker? Change baits and drop again. Once again.....Bang! Fish on. If you drop 3 or 4 times and don’t pull any marks or change baits 2 or 3 times and still don’t pull any quick marks - you should consider changing holes. You will at times hook into more than one fish with the same jig so don’t be too quick to change it up. (I usually eat all the cheese curds – as I’m from Wisconsin – before I move on to the batter fried button mushrooms when I order a sampler platter.) There will be other times where a particular presentation (color) doesn’t even pull a fast mark let alone a strike! That jig finds itself in the bottom of the bos's bucket pretty quick on that given day. (I for one leave the onion rings behind on the platter. My wife appreciates that

crappie were running in the 9 to 12 inch range. Them "unwanted" perch were running in the 8 to 14 inch range. I commonly practice selective harvest - bringing home just enough for dinner. Six big pot belly perch were released as were a number of 10 to 12 inch crappie. There aren't too many more days of ice left in the season but I hope to make the most of it....

Nice report bosman and pic's as well!!! Tight Lines:Peter