crappie day

[CaptSpike]

I've been told for a week or more about an early ice location we fish being safe. I was skeptical and in no hurry to test it out as I am still recovering from hip surgery back in early October. Then I found out from my nephew that a mutual friend had fished it already and said there was 4-5" of half and half ice (half snow half black ice). So with good weather predicted I wanted to go bad. All my requests for a fishing partner were met with excuses. It wasn't looking good (good to have a buddy alone for first ice trips). I then called my Brother in law Bill, who I figured would say no as he doesn't like first ice but figured I'd ask anyway. Well to my surprise he said he'd go!

I arrived at Bill's house at 5am and he wasn't ready. His Vexilar battery was dead and he was charging it.........We switched out the battery packed up his gear and hit the road. An hour later we arrived at our destination. A short walk out and we set up to a lit screen on the vex. Fish after fish bit one after the other it was game on. Only one problem, they were small 6-8" crappie. I checked around all of the other holes I punched and found the same scenario or nothing. I even drilled a bunch more holes with no luck. So we sat on the huge school of fish and played all morning long. Even when we left they were still stacked up but much more finicky. Hardly worth the effort after a banner morning. I kid you not I alone must have caught over 100 fish! They hit gulp minnows on a horizontal Foraging minnow green colored lure. I also had a ton of luck on my islander jig, white, pink and blue with the same gulp minnow. Bill used the same foraging minnow but a bit larger and used trout worms as well. We did land four jumbo yellow perch as well. My dogs ate them for dinner.

All in all a great first trip of the season. We are hoping ice holds as we have a big rain storm predicted midweek with lots of rain in the forecast.

Can't wait to get back out there again.

Spike