01-28-2014, 01:10 PM
[#0000FF]Met up with WH2 Monday for what we thought might be our final jaunt on Willard this winter. Weather forecast for coming week looks bad for safe ice conditions. Already going downhill.
We got on the ice...carefully...about 7:30 and had first holes drilled long before the sun climbed over the mountains and through the clouds. Air temp 22, with no wind. Frost formations on any little patches of snow and along the numerous new cracks in the ice. Some made purty l'il frost flowers. It stayed cold enough all day that they stayed intact at least until I left about 3. Air temp just over freezing.
Another cold morning...for fishing too. WH2 only brought a hand auger...for the 10" ice. He set up and stayed pretty much in one spot until late morning. I moved around a lot...drilling several sets of holes. We both saw fish moving through our zone but they all had lockjaw. Nary a sniff.
Curt announced on our walkie talkies that the best bite over the weekend had begun between 10 and 10:30. At 10:10 I had my first good bite and rassled a chunky kitty up to the hole. Unfortunately, he had rolled in my line and came into the hole tail first. As I was trying to coax it up out of the hole it did a roll and power dive...cutting the line on the sharp edges of a pectoral fin spine. Score: fish 1, TD zip.
After another half hour of seeing little...and catching less...WH2 and I decided to join Mike4Cobra further out on the ice. He had stopped by briefly to chat, on his way out to a couple of spots he had GPSed. He had texted Curt that he was at least getting bites and that was good enough for us. Bites is better than no bites.
Shortly after we joined Mike he began catching fish. First a couple of nice perch...including one toad over 12 inches. Then he got beat up by a cookie cutter kitty. But he won and I grabbed it with my custom made fish grabber to pull it up through the hole.
Then Curt scored a couple of perch. But I still remained fishless. Only the memory of a catfish lost. Wondered if this would be a rare skunk day.
When action stopped and there were no more fish marks coming through on our sonars we elected to relocate to a spot that had produced for Mike and Curt on Saturday. Good move. Curt picked up several more perch...including a footlong that was his biggest...at least before I left about 2:30.
I finally got on the board too. First with our solo crappie...about a 10 incher. Then, with a 13 inch plus perch...our largest. I caught both fish after announcing I was going to leave...even having all my gear except my sonar loaded in the sled. Then, noticing marks on the screen I dropped down for the crappie about 1:30...and the perch just after 2. We observed that my leaving seemed to bring the fish in. So, to help out my fishing buddies, I did leave at about 2:30. But I noticed they were both still there as I drove off about 3:30. I hope I brought them more luck by my departure.
Great day on the ice guys...even if the fishing was slow (as usual). I think we all agreed that catching even a few fish on Willard is more rewarding than covering the ice with fish on some other lakes. At least none of us had to drive home smelling skunk.
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We got on the ice...carefully...about 7:30 and had first holes drilled long before the sun climbed over the mountains and through the clouds. Air temp 22, with no wind. Frost formations on any little patches of snow and along the numerous new cracks in the ice. Some made purty l'il frost flowers. It stayed cold enough all day that they stayed intact at least until I left about 3. Air temp just over freezing.
Another cold morning...for fishing too. WH2 only brought a hand auger...for the 10" ice. He set up and stayed pretty much in one spot until late morning. I moved around a lot...drilling several sets of holes. We both saw fish moving through our zone but they all had lockjaw. Nary a sniff.
Curt announced on our walkie talkies that the best bite over the weekend had begun between 10 and 10:30. At 10:10 I had my first good bite and rassled a chunky kitty up to the hole. Unfortunately, he had rolled in my line and came into the hole tail first. As I was trying to coax it up out of the hole it did a roll and power dive...cutting the line on the sharp edges of a pectoral fin spine. Score: fish 1, TD zip.
After another half hour of seeing little...and catching less...WH2 and I decided to join Mike4Cobra further out on the ice. He had stopped by briefly to chat, on his way out to a couple of spots he had GPSed. He had texted Curt that he was at least getting bites and that was good enough for us. Bites is better than no bites.
Shortly after we joined Mike he began catching fish. First a couple of nice perch...including one toad over 12 inches. Then he got beat up by a cookie cutter kitty. But he won and I grabbed it with my custom made fish grabber to pull it up through the hole.
Then Curt scored a couple of perch. But I still remained fishless. Only the memory of a catfish lost. Wondered if this would be a rare skunk day.
When action stopped and there were no more fish marks coming through on our sonars we elected to relocate to a spot that had produced for Mike and Curt on Saturday. Good move. Curt picked up several more perch...including a footlong that was his biggest...at least before I left about 2:30.
I finally got on the board too. First with our solo crappie...about a 10 incher. Then, with a 13 inch plus perch...our largest. I caught both fish after announcing I was going to leave...even having all my gear except my sonar loaded in the sled. Then, noticing marks on the screen I dropped down for the crappie about 1:30...and the perch just after 2. We observed that my leaving seemed to bring the fish in. So, to help out my fishing buddies, I did leave at about 2:30. But I noticed they were both still there as I drove off about 3:30. I hope I brought them more luck by my departure.
Great day on the ice guys...even if the fishing was slow (as usual). I think we all agreed that catching even a few fish on Willard is more rewarding than covering the ice with fish on some other lakes. At least none of us had to drive home smelling skunk.
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]. There is a spot South of Eagle beach, where the trees are, before Freeway bay, that has a lot of stickups from the last drought, 10 years ago, that might be the the only spawning area left but I agree, it won't be like when the lake is full. A lot of stickups along the South dike are out of the water now but I guess the water might come up a little before they spawn, even though it is unlikely. I guess we can keep our fingers crossed.