12-04-2004, 09:55 PM
I took my pontoon to Rockport for the last time this year.
I got on the water about 8:00am. The ramp was very icy and slick. The water was open with a small amount of ice forming at the inlet. Water temp was 35* all day. I started fishing just north of the ramp in 35' of water. My first 2 fish were rainbows. One a nice 17" chunk with a few anchor worm scars and the other a 12" planter. The trout were suspended about 10' off the bottom. I moved farther to the north and deeper [about 45'] and started to find the perch. They were hard to hook [rusty I guess] and I only pulled about a dozen out of the water. Perch were between 8" and 10" in size. I was using my ice hook up with a cast master and a white what-a-cricket,tipped with mealies. After about 1 hour on the water, it began to get choppy and I could not keep my jigs quiet or still on the bottom and the perch all but quit biting. I fished until about 12:30 moving around a lot but could not mark many more fish. On the way home Echo looked to be forming ice all over the reservoir. It will be fishable a week or two before Rockport at this rate. Echo is real low, so it is freezing quicker,I think.
Wish that I could have made it to Huntington today but I needed to be back home too early to go there. Hope every one did well there. The weather could not have been better. Now if we could only find a product that would keep the rod eyelets from freezing up! DKS.
[signature]
I got on the water about 8:00am. The ramp was very icy and slick. The water was open with a small amount of ice forming at the inlet. Water temp was 35* all day. I started fishing just north of the ramp in 35' of water. My first 2 fish were rainbows. One a nice 17" chunk with a few anchor worm scars and the other a 12" planter. The trout were suspended about 10' off the bottom. I moved farther to the north and deeper [about 45'] and started to find the perch. They were hard to hook [rusty I guess] and I only pulled about a dozen out of the water. Perch were between 8" and 10" in size. I was using my ice hook up with a cast master and a white what-a-cricket,tipped with mealies. After about 1 hour on the water, it began to get choppy and I could not keep my jigs quiet or still on the bottom and the perch all but quit biting. I fished until about 12:30 moving around a lot but could not mark many more fish. On the way home Echo looked to be forming ice all over the reservoir. It will be fishable a week or two before Rockport at this rate. Echo is real low, so it is freezing quicker,I think.
Wish that I could have made it to Huntington today but I needed to be back home too early to go there. Hope every one did well there. The weather could not have been better. Now if we could only find a product that would keep the rod eyelets from freezing up! DKS.
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