Fished the main pond Saturday with a couple buddies. Had warm weather all week - and Saturday was up to 50. Ice was deteriorating fast around the edges, North side of the pond was actually opened up and a ring of water surrounded us by the end of the day. Main ice was 7" when we arrived, 4" when we left! Apparently we left with not much time to spare.

Historically I've had issues finding a reliable bite on my pond - it's notorious as a light ice bite fishery and fish are constantly moving due to my intentional lack of structure - but I wanted to try and change my luck this year. Also, I've had many questions I was hoping to address this Winter through ice fishing: Where are the YP which were up to 13" in Winter 2011 - Was my WE stocking in Fall of 2011 successful - How's the winter condition of my SMB and HBC? Had a great time and learned some things by the time we left the pond:

Started out the day with a 8"+ CSBG - that's a large fish for my pond. We caught dozens more throughout the day, but they were all in the 4-6" range - as I suspected.



Managed a few RES, this was the largest at around 7". Population is strong, but improved frequency of larger fish [9"+] would be nice.



The SMB hit jigging spoons most of the day - few fish between 8-12", 6 were up to 17.5". I was surprised at their size, and WR looked pretty strong.







The HBC also loved the jigging spoons, and we saw a dozen fish ranging from 11" - 13.5". I was hoping for a 15"er I suspect is swimming.









To be continued on next post....

Last edited by teehjaeh57; 01/20/13 03:02 PM.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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