2-24-12 – Best Day Yet!!!

I didn’t get on the ice today until 1:30pm. I knew with the storm coming that I didn’t have much time before the roads got slick. A group of us are headed to this inland pond in the morning so I wanted to get a good scouting report. We have been catching bluegill very consistently but we wanted to expand our fishing zone and search out  fish that have yet to be pressured this season. All I can say is it was a success!

When I got to the spot there was an eagle eating some fish remains. This bird was there last trip as well so I tried the best I could to get a decent picture. I will bring my nice camera tomorrow and try to get a better shot if it comes around!

I punched a series of holes where I guessed the fish would be. I dropped my Aqua Vu camera down the hole and got excited for a minute. There were tons and tons of fish! Unfortunately, they were all shiners. I took a quick video that is not great quality but it shows the abundance of them that I saw throughout many of the holes today!

It took only three holes to find some bluegill and it was on. Fish after fish, I probably pulled 35 – 8-9″ gills out of the first hole. I didn’t want to educate all the fish today so I moved on. For the next 45 minutes I couldn’t do anything wrong. The fish liked every color I tried bait or no bait. I thought to myself, I must be crazy to leave but I want to go find more fish! I packed up and headed down the lake to a different spot.

When I got to the fresh weed bed I didn’t find anything but 10″ holes so I knew If there were fish I could get them. I punched holes in a large area pretty well spread out. The water was deeper than I wanted but I was marking fish so I dropped down. I quickly got the interest of a fish. It was a bass. I thought it was fun having them tear the line off my reel so I hopped around and caught several others ranging between 12-17″. They were super aggressive compared to others that I have caught this season. After a few of them I decided I should get back to my mission.

I moved in closer to shore from where I was getting the bass and I found good bluegill. The depth ranged from 3-10″ with very little weeds in the majority of the holes. This was also where I got most of my big gills. I caught one gill that was 10 3/4″ but the picture didn’t save on my camera unfortunately. The one pictured below was 10 1/4″ so it still a hog. Tomorrow, if we can find the fish, we will get some better pictures!