Started off fishing a short afternoon / evening bite at one of the spots where I fish for carp during the open water season. This outing was more about mapping the various depths with my electronics, so I have a rough idea of what I'm casting to in open water.
Having fished this particular spot some years ago, I wasn't expecting much. Shortly before dark, the walleye bite turned on, and I managed to land my first couple walleyes of the year. Though they were small enough to fit in a home aquarium, they were welcome catches, as it's been q few years since I last targeted or caught any walleyes on ice.
About a week later, I decided to ice fish another local area I hadn't fished in a couple years. My friend Mike and my son Zev were with me for this ice fishing outing. We drove out onto the river in Mike's 4x4 pickup truck, which was very safe on 20+ inches of solid ice.
The day started off slowly, with Mike catching the only pike of the morning, despite our spread of 15 or so tip up lines, bait with a variety of frozen minnows as well as some hot dogs.
After not catching any perch for most of the daye, the bite suddenly picked up by mid afternoon. First perch I landed was a stunning 12.5 incher, my biggest of the winter so far.
Ended up with a few more good keeper sized perch, and some smaller ones released as well.
My son Zev kept warm staying in the truck and playing on his tablet for much of the day, though he did take the time to mess around with our catches every now and then.
The following week I headed out to fish a smaller river for the first time this year. The river in question used to be a great fishery, but has declined significantly over the past few years due to over fishing. Wasn't expecting much, but was hoping to get into some big perch, and perhaps bass or walleye.
Drilled many holes in 4 or 5 different spots throughout the course of the day. After a few small perch, on the the holes came through with a couple back to back decent sized perch, that hit the rattlebait I was jigging.
Finally, towards the end of the day on my 38th hole, I marked a good fish on my Marcum flasher. After a few follows and a couple minutes of teasing, it finally hit the mealworms tipped Rapala W5 Jigging rap I was using. Ended up landing my biggest walleye so far this winter.
Released it in perfect condition, as it was over the maximum allowable slot size for keepers.
One week later, I headed out on the St Lawrence River hoping to get my first flag line (tipup) pike of the year. Haven't had much success on my tip ups this year so far, apart from a couple tripped flags that didn't end up resulting in any pike landed.
For this outing, my friend Mike came along again. While he baited his lines with frozen suckers, I used some bigger mackerels, as well as a few jumbo hot dogs.
Haven't used hot dogs for bait, since I lived in Texas in over 20 years ago. Used to get lots of bullheads and channel cats on them in open water. After seeing some under ice footage of pike hitting hot dogs on Youtube, figured I'd give it a try.
2 just over 2 hours to get hit, and sure enough, it ended up being the only fish of the day, and also my biggest of the winter up to this point.
Guess there's a first time for everything. Funny enough, the mackerels and frozen suckers on the flags surrounding this line weren't touched, and only 4 of our 17 lines were baited with hot dogs.
Will definitely be mixing hot dogs in with my mackerels next time I attempt to get some pike on ice, and may even try them on bobbers in open water this summer.
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