Maybe my last time Ice Fishing

[djkimmel]

For 2016 anyways. With this huge warm spell and the sunshine, all the melt I'm not feeling it anymore for the ice fishing. Falling through again is not one of my goals!!

I got out one more time on Wednesday, February 17th while it was still winter out. I will say it felt great to get bites but the bites were often so light I had to stare at my spring bobber until my eyes hurt. One glance away could easily mean a missed fish and possibly lost bait which I mostly used waxworms with the occasional spike thrown in.

I think I had one 'big' bite all day and I missed it because it made me jump it was so pronounced compared to the norm for the day. In the end I had to dril a bunch more holes though when there was an old hole in the same area I moved to I just spudded that hole back out. I made about 7 holes in a 50 foot area and just kept hole-jumping trying to find this moving, loose school of bigger bluegills.

There was no hot hole this day but moving from hole to hole I was able to keep getting bites fairly consistently throughout the day in the same area I caught them on Monday though I got more bites 15 or 20 feet closer to the big sand point this time. I got near the edge of the sand hump and caught more small gills there.

Later in the day I tried to find a deep milfoil bed in 12-13 feet of water. I used my GPS to try to find it from summer marking. I was getting tired so I didn't want to drill a bunch more holes. I did not get any bites near this weed bed. I may have been out a little deeper.

I also tried to find some of the weed beds that are around the little hump out there. When I drilled a couple deeper holes in 10-11 foot I only got one half-hearted bite in one of the holes. It was so light I could have believed I imagined it but I felt the slide of the jig from the fish briefly. I could not get another bite after a few minutes from that hole. Not the school I was looking for.

I moved close to the tip of small hump where there had been a mix of brown cabbage and other weeds and finally started getting some light bites though I was actually in only about 6 feet of water. I caught a potato chip gill, then a ~5 incher and then one about 7 inches and decided to call it a day on that fish.

Here's some pictures from the fun, challenging day on Round Lake.

1st bluegill Wednesday Round Lake from the hole that was hot Monday. I caught this decent fish right away and a couple smaller ones before the hole just died on me pretty much for good for the day.


A little extra fun, I moved to the hole that produced a 3rd of my bluegills Monday and had about the lightest bite of the whole day, and it turns out to be the largest panfish of the day - the bluegill's cousin - the largemouth bass! Caught it on a tiny Skandia Pelkie tungsten #10 red ice jig with a waxworm!


I dropped back down and had another real light bite that turned out to be a another largemouth bass though smaller than the previous skinny keeper - about 10 inches long. Hard to believe how light these bass hit the tiny ice jig and waxworm. Then that hole petered out pretty much for good. I even dropped the camera and couldn't see anything bigger than plankton.

I drilled a new hole 30 feet away and quickly popped a pretty bull gill on the gold-plated Skandia Pelkie Tungsten ice jig #10 with a waxworm! Heading back in the right direction.


I returned to an earlier hole a little later to catch another bull bluegill on the gold Skandia Pelkie jig and waxworm!


As I mentioned since the bites were so light all day and hard to hook I switched to a tiny red #12 Skandia Pelkie ice jig tipped with a spike to catch this final decent bluegill of the day out by the shallow underwater hump.