Fishing Forum

Fished the west side of rockport Sunday morning. Got on the ice at 645 and the edges were solid. Ice where we were was probably 8” thick. 
Fishing for perch was hot. Lots of perch under 9 inches lots of perch in the 9-11 inch range. 
My friend was using a glow jig tipped with perch meat, never changed and slayed. 
I used all kinds of stuff trying to only get only the bigger ones to bite, including sonars and jigging rapala minnows, and various jigging spoons, did not matter. The dinks blew them up just the same. 
I did bring an underwater camera and had a blast watching the perch down there. They were entertained by the camera and would swim right up to the lens to check it out. Pretty funny.
We were in 35’ of water. 
Left at 10:30 am edges were solid coming off but the ground had thawed so it was very thick, sticky mud hiking out. That made an absolute mess of boots pants and gear. 

Good time for sure. 

Thanks for that report, glad to hear the edges are still holding up, I bet that will change this week. I have that exact Vexilar, if that is a camera attached to it, what brand is it?

(02-25-2025, 06:30 PM)wiperhunter2 Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for that report, glad to hear the edges are still holding up, I bet that will change this week. I have that exact vexilar, what is that you have attached to it?

I think it's his under-water camera screen. 

Still nice to know the edges are holding up. Guess the nighttime temps are cold enough to assist in keeping them pretty solid.

I needed an 8ft plank today at RP. Was on the sunny east side so the west might have been better for shore ice. Perch fishing was good but I had to go deeper than normal for me at RP tried 25-60 ft and only found them at 55 and 69 ft. Nothing to big. That said my fishing club students are still doing well along the dam.

(02-26-2025, 01:42 AM)Cowboypirate Wrote: [ -> ]I needed an 8ft plank today at RP. Was on the sunny east side so the west might have been better for shore ice. Perch fishing was good but I had to go deeper than normal for me at RP tried 25-60 ft and only found them at 55 and 69 ft. Nothing to big. That said my fishing club students are still doing well along the dam.

At least you got out there Lance but long-term access doesn't sound good. I know overnight temps were colder last night, not sure the ice will last, if temps stay this warm during the day. There is going to be a lot of run off coming down the river, raising the water level in all lakes.

(02-25-2025, 06:30 PM)wiperhunter2 Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for that report, glad to hear the edges are still holding up, I bet that will change this week. I have that exact Vexilar, if that is a camera attached to it, what brand is it?

It is a FourQ underwater fishing camera. It came with a clamp mount that fit perfectly on the side of the vexilar FL8 handle (it would fit on any fishfinder handle). It has a 4.3 inch screen and 100' of cable. It does have the infrared lights and cost me $50 on Amazon. 
It was kinda interesting, because before the sun came up, it was pretty dark on the camera screen. I turned the infrared lights on and could see some kind of underwater bugs swimming in front of the lens, they looked like shrimp or scuds or chironomids. I could not see them unless I had infrared on.  
No idea what they were but it was really cool to see the perch stacked up down there probably chewing on those bugs. It was pretty easy to be selective when the little ones would grab ahold of the jig, shake the hell out of it, then spit it out.
That was my first time ever using an underwater camera and it was flat out awesome.
Orienting it to my jig was a battle but once I got it, it was deadly combined with the vexilar.