One of my good repeat customers asked me to take him and his teenage son out for some decent ice fishing action. His goal was to have them catch good numbers of decent fish. Having already tried ice fishing for stocked trout at a lodge, I suggested they try bass fishing on open ice in public water.
Having been to the lake I took them to a few times on ice in the past, I knew there was going to be a decent trekk to get to where we wanted to be in order to have any shot catching bass. After a good 25-30 minute trekk hauling the sleds across the lake, I drilled the first set of 10 ice holes for them to jig in, with the help of my Humminbird and Marcum flashers. I rigged the first rod with a small lipless rattlebait, and the other with a w3 Rapala jigging rap. I then tipped both with live mealworms.
As I dropped the rattlebait into the first ice hole, I immediately saw a flurry of fish rising from the 27 foot deep bottom on the flasher. I handed to rod to Chad, and told him to let it down to within a few feet off bottom. The rattlebait got hit on the first drop, and Chad landed his first fish of the day, a small largemouth bass.
After landing another small bass about the same size, Chad managed a good perch from that same hole.
Meanwhile, his father Jacques was doing OK in an adjacent hole, at about the same depth. We landed some big perch, and eventually a couple smallmouth bass.
Chad had his turn at smallmouth bass as well, landing the biggest one of the day, while still fishing in his first hole.
Eventually, the action in those first few holes died down, but by that time, both father and son had landed the 3 target species in the lake, all within the first hour. You simply can't ask for better results.
Unfortunately, access to this lake only gets tougher as the winter goes on, with snow getting deeper, ice getting thicker, and slush building up in between. We've been lucky so far this season, as we haven't had much snow, so lake is still accessible on foot.
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