A decent cold front early in December finally allowed me to venture out looking for safe ice. By now, after 20+ seasons of ice fishing, I have an idea of where and when to look, but as always, safety is first. No fish is worth risking your life for, and going for a swim in a snowsuit is never part of my plans. As such, I brought along my trusty spud/wrecker bar to ensure my chances of staying topside on the ice.
For my first outing, I had a limited window of opportunity. A couple days before the outing, some rain and a warm front moved in, so I was was skeptical on whether or not I'd be able to access my spot of choice. I had a backup spot nearby, just in case. Not having fished in about 3 weeks since returning from Florida, I was itching to wet a line.
December 10th 2024:
Got to my spot about 1 hour after sunrise. Though the ice looked sort of safe where I planned to fish, the shorelines seemed sketchy. Sure enough, my spud bar went right through the ice close to shore just about everywhere, with the first 6-10 feet being dense slush. Without access to get on the ice, I switched plans and headed to my backup spot.
Being significantly shallower, this spot had a good 2.5 to 3 inches of solid ice, with another 2-3 inches of grey ice on top. Safe enough for 3-4 jabs with my bar, I ventured out, staying close to shore. Historically, I haven't done very well at the spot on ice, but I was just happy to get out and not having wasted my day.
I eventually figured out that all the fish were interested in were spoons, after jigging a lipless crankbait and Rapala jigging Rap for a while. Both a Swedish Pimple, and Kastmaster spoon, yielded some decent numbers of bass, bluegill, sunfish, perch and crappie, though nothing big. As you can see, the fish in this shallow muddy spot don't have much color in winter.
Decent multispecies catch, though sort of felt almost like micro fishing...
December 15th 2024:
A few days later, I venture back to the original spot I had planned to hit the previous week, after a deep freeze cold front moved in to solidify the ice. This time, I was able to access the spot, with 5 inches of solid ice all around.
Seems like I picked the right time and right spot. I landed a crappie on my first drop, jigging a Kastmaster spoon.
On the next hole, my first drop landed small largemouth bass.
The next few holes were the most productive, landing a huge mess of mix species, mainly bluegills. Again, the majority came jigging the Kastmaster spoon.
While I don't normally harvest sunfish, my younger daughter loves them. Being that I was catching some really nice ones in the 8-10 inch range, I decided to keep a few, as well as a couple small bass.
Eventually ended up catching some perch, but none big enough worthwhile to keep.
My surprise came close to the end of the day, when a small pike inhaled my lipless Yozuri rattlenvibe crankbait. I wasn't using a leader, but somehow, my 6 lbs flourocarbon line held up against hundreds of razor sharp teeth despite getting pretty frayed.
Was hoping for a possible evening walleye, but unfortunately, that never happened. Still, I managed to land 59 fish, with 40 of them being Bluegills. I'd say I got my fair share of panfishing done for December.
December 24th 2024:
After a major deep freeze in another region I planned to fish, as well as some decent snow cover, I had big plans for a small lake I've iced fished in the past. This early in the season, decent ice cover with some snow is a bare minimum for a good bite, otherwise the bass and perch in that lake seemed spooked under thinner ice in very clear water.
My hopes were good for finding them where I usually do this time of year. Namely, 22 to 28 feet for schools of small largemouth bass, and 28 to 35 feet for schools of jumbo perch with some smallmouth bass. Obviously, there is an overlap, and I've often landed all 3 species out of the same hole, but this is a general guideline.
Despite finding 8 inches of solid ice, covered in 12-15 cm or so of snow, all I managed for the first 3 hours of my outing was 1 perch, despite having fished over 20 holes at depths from 20 to 40 feet.
At this point, I decided to try shallower on a different section of the lake. On my 23rd hole, I finally caught a nicer "8 bar" perch in 20 feet, about 10 feet shallower than where I normally find them.
Unfortunately, they weren't schooled up at that depth, so I kept drilling. 3 holes later, I finally landed my first bass of the day, which came out of 12 feet of depth, a good 10-15 feet shallower than where I've had most of my success on that lake.
Decent little fish that I kept for the table, as I always make it a point to try to harvest my bag limits of largemouth bass from this lake. In addition to making more room and reducing competition to the native smallmouth bass in the lake, culling small largemouth bass makes for bigger sizes in the future. Over the few seasons since I first started fishing this lake, my sons and I have landed many hundreds of these smaller bass there, and likely harvested well over 100 bass by now. Subsequently, I've managed to catch some more decent sized ones, as time goes on.
Moving along, I decided to spend the rest of the day targeting shallower water in the 12 to 20 feet range. I had a few followers show up on my flasher every now and then, but they seemed very finicky, and really needed to be worked. I had been alternating from jigging a lipless crankbait to using the Kastmaster spoon for 5 successive holes each. When I did manage a follow with no bites, I'd switch it up, but that tactic didn't do any better.
Finally, on my 36th hole, I noticed a nice mark come up after the Kastmaster spoon. I was jigging suspended at around 10 over 15 feet, while this fish remained in the 12-13 foot mark. It took a few attempts, but after a couple minutes of "working" the fish, it finally nailed my lure.
I new right away that it was a better quality fish, as it would dart straight back down every time it neared the surface. After a few good runs, I finally had tired it enough to ease it's big head up the ice hole, as I was using a 6 inch diameter auger. I was surprised to see it's size when I lifted it out of the hole.
At 18.5 inches and weighing around 3.5 lbs, this is by far the biggest bass I have landed there, or ever seen come out of this given lake. At this size, despite being a major threat to the smallmouth bass fishery in the lake, I decided to release it, as I hate killing trophy sized fish, and to be honest, the smaller 12-15 inchers taste a lot better. The big bass looked liked it barely fit through the ice hole, though I've landed even bigger ones from 6 inch holes in the past.
I kept fishing hard, run and gunning holes until sunset, with a few more small chasers on my flasher, but no hookups. Finally, on my last hole, while working my way back towards the car, in 26 feet of water, I landed another small keeper sized bass. I didn't bother with a pic of the fish, but got this nice sunset pic instead.
Beautiful end to an epic outing. It was one of those days where I had resolved to simply enjoying the workout of hand drilling 52 holes, and trekking a good 4-5 kilometers on foot. to and from my spots, while hauling my sled/gear. Definitely beats a day at the gym, anytime.
December 26th 2024:
My last outing of 2024 due to lots of incoming rain, I planned to fish multiple flag lines for the pike for the first time this winter. Being that Quebec winter rules which allow for up to 10 lines and the use of dead baitfish, kicked in last weekend, I figured I'd try a new spot I hoped to hit last season. That never happened, as spot didn't freeze up properly with the warm winter we had. With all the recent cold, I had my hopes up, but when I got there, I only found about 2.5 inches of ice under 6-8 inches of fresh snow near shore. Further out looked even thinner, so I was forced to hit my backup spot, a smaller waterway on my way back home, as I won't fish sketchy ice.
As I've caught pike at that backup spot in the past, I set up 9 flag lines, keeping my last legal line for jigging spoons. Used a mix of headless smelt, and thawed mackerels as bait.
Sure enough, I hit the jackpot on my first jigging hole with the Kastmaster spoon, landing 5 keeper sized perch in a row, when most of the perch I usually catch at this spot are significantly smaller.
I fished a few more holes in the general vicinity, but perch only decreased in size, with 1 more keeper sized perch in the 9 inch range. Then, returning to the first hole I started at, I hooked a small pike on the Kastmaster spoon. Lucky it was hooked in the tip of the snout, which gave it little to no chance of cutting the line. Fish had a large tumor / infection on both sides, and was also bloody at the tail, mouth and gill plate.
Moving to the other side of my flag line spread didn't yield any interesting results, so after a while, I returned to the general area of where I started jigging. Sure enough, the 13th hole yielded another pike, this one smaller than the first.
Just after releasing it, I landed another keeper sized perch from the same hole, as well as a smaller one.
The flag lines didn't produce a single bite all day.
By this point, I started having issues with my auger, I believe the battery may need to be replaced after 4 seasons of heavy usage. Will wait for Ion tech support to confirm.
As 2024 winds down to it's end, I'll take the opportunity to wish everyone happy holidays, and much success in the upcoming year.
Thanks again for reading/following my blog, looking to add many more posts and pics in 2025!
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