Ice fishing - a fine fish fest ! 12/8/06

[Fishhound]

[black][size 3][black]Sorry folks - I forgot to put the date - We fished on FRIDAY 12/8/06 ![/black] [/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[black][size 3]Hooked up with Fairwayphilly and hit Strawberry first thing in the morning. It was really cold when we got there, but it warmed up considerably as the day went on. By afternoon, I had shucked off my coat and I was fishing in shirtsleeves. What a great day to be out on the ice ![/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[black][size 3]The fishing started off a little slow, but steadied up, then got good. There were periods of little action, but they only seemed to last about 10-15 minutes. There were other times when we were catching them one after another. We had one double hook up and several times when the hookups were only separated by seconds. I don't know how many we caught (I lost track early on) but we must have iced around 80 fish between the 2 of us, with Phil taking top rod with the first score, the most fish, the largest (a couple over 22 inches), and a bonus fatty rainbow to boot. All I got was a lot of nice big cutts - but I am more than quite happy with those. [/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[black][size 3]The fish were all over the water column. We fished in about 18 foot of water on 4-5 inches of good clear singing ice. My catches started out on the bottom and then progressed towards the middle half at around 12 foot. Phil had a different experience, his started out higher then he was catching them on the bottom later on. We used a wide variety of offerings, with jigs tipped with shiners, chubs, or worms being the predominant method.[/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[black][size 3]All in all a fantastic day on the ice - great fishing, great catching, great company and a great time ![/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[signature]

[Theekillerbee]

Nice report there Fishhound. You guys must have found the honey hole, cause everyone else got abused by the fishies. Cool pics as well.
[signature]

[MrLipripper]

You da man, Fishhound!!! You did a lot of catching while others were just fishing. Were the white or crystal colored jigs working for you? - those seemed to be best during the summer.
[signature]

[Fishhound]

[black][size 3][crazy] OOPSIE - OK, I fixed it. [pirate][/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[black][size 3][mad] I guess I should have proof read that post a little better. [blush] [/size][/black]
[black][size 3][/size][/black]
[signature]

[fairwayphilly]

It was a great day. Only odd thing is that early on was some of the worst fishing of the day for us. We only iced three fish between us between 7:00 and 8:30. Then things really took off, just about the time they usually cool off. Only 1 fish over the slot today, one other I could have probably tail pinched and stretch and got him there, but on the other end, 18" was probably the smallest fished iced today, with the bulk of them in the 20-21" range. We definately were in the honey hole, only two other groups today and only saw one fish caught between the two groups.
It was a good thing it was foggy when we got there, if I had seen the entire bay we would have probably packed up and moved to Mud Creek with everyone else instead of drilling some test holes and trying it out for a little while. The reports from mud creek don't seem quite as positive as ours. Wasn't very much ice cover over the bay, but the ice we were on was 4", clear and black. I've definately fished on worse in my time.
[signature]