Breakn’ The Ice

Darrin & Blaine joined me today on a local lake for a mixed bag kind of day. They met me at my house around 7:30 AM and by the time we had done everything and gotten to the water to fish, it was almost 9:30 AM. Once again, there was no need in jumping out too early, as the night temps were way too cold to start out earlier than we had done. It had gotten so cold overnight that we had to break ice with the boat as we idled out to the lake to fish. This is typical for this time of the year and it hadn’t surprised me at all! The day was another sunny one and without any wind most of the time, felt like it was over 50 degrees in some areas when we fished. I had been wearing a survival suit lately and was beginning to second-guess myself on this day! I actually had to peel it down to my waist a few times to cool off. It was a little while before anyone hooked up, but Blaine managed to get the first one into the boat and it was a real beauty of 4.5 pounds and almost 20 inches long. These fish are so fat at this time of the year that they resemble a pre spawn smallie from the earlier months in the season. Once more, tubes were going to be what was needed to entice these fish into biting again today and it was to be a real slow bite. I think there were more missed strikes today than actual landed fish and I had many of them as well. We definitely saw the big bruisers, but with clear water, high sunshine and no wind, they were reluctant to bite our offerings. I had to vacate the mid range water and go deep in order to get bit, but the fish were a little on the smaller side when I did. Most of the larger bass were in 4 to 8 feet of water and cruising through the weeds and rocks but absolutely inactive most overall. It’s not that we didn’t catch them, it’s that we didn’t crush them! Darrin & Blaine were both into fish but 2 to 3.5 pounds most of the time. They caught a few over 4 pounds but nothing over 5 today and that was surprising. Darrin even managed to get a nice walleye over 4 pounds and a really jumbino perch that were to become dinner later. We picked at the bass all day long and caught many medium sized fish in 12 to 15 feet of water with tubes along with the occasional larger one but opted for a change. Around 3:00 PM we decided to close shop on the smallies and began to troll and see if we could get into a Muskie. Unfortunately after an hour and a half or so without a touch, we called it quits and headed home. All in all it was a decent day but below the calibre that I am so accustomed to at this time of the season. Regardless, there were still 40 or 50 smallies caught and that’s still a pretty good day for anyone!!!