We were on the ice for sunrise looking for some deep water perch. The bite lately has been decent and we were hoping that this late ice would have the fish trying to put on some weight for the spawn.
The bite didn’t start off hot nor did it ever turn. We cut out a large area and worked through all the holes over and over. It seemed like there was fish in every hole but many were either small or inactive. The fish that were willing to bite charged the bait as it dropped. The fish were decent size on average but very finicky.
Mainly I was using vertical jigs that had glow paint. When the sun was still rising, white glow produced the most reaction but as the sun got higher the fish shunned away from it. The color that I caught the majority of my fish on was a football jig with glow green/blue. As far as a jigging technique, it seemed like each fish wanted it different. In general, I would drop down and stop 3 feet off the bottom and wait for a reaction. If a fish wasn’t already charging I would wait for a reaction and then work them up. None of the fish that I caught were higher than 8 feet.
After a few hours of slow fishing, we packed it up and headed to fish pumpkinseed, bluegill, and crappie. The wind on Lake Champlain was suppose to be strong out of the south, but variable so we kept that in mind with our spot selection. There has been a good bite on a southerly exposed bay. Upon arrival, the door hit me when I opened it. Easy decision not to go out there!
We checked one more bay with limited success before settling in for the night. The bite was slow but the fish were everywhere. We picked at some nice fish up until close to dark. The fish here were picking at the bait but not committing too well. It was easy to bring the fish above the weeds but I found that they bit better in them. We were all beat from the long day on the ice and in the car so we ended up packing up a little early.
D & B Ice Adventures 
Regarding your ‘selective harvest’ approach to fishing. When fishing deep water perch, (30 ft or so), many of the fish I pull up have the swim-bladder bulging in their mouth. I was taught that these fish wouldn’t survive if put back in the water. So, if I wanted to put back a fat female that I pulled from the depths, would it survive ?
gofish
Pulling the fish up through the water column slower can help them adjust as they come or you can pop their air bladder. I would not suggest popping their air bladder though… In reality though, it is something we deal with by fishing deep