It's been very cold here and the ice is 2 feet thick now with about 4 inches of snow on top, light isnt getting to the bottom as well now and the weeds are starting to die. It's very strange though, I dont have any gas smell out of the ice fishing holes like I did last year which may be a result of rerouting an incoming stream that was bringing some swamp water into my 6 acre lake. My water is clearing up quite well and I have 6 feet of visibility through my sight fishing hole in the ice fishing tent.
Catching these trout has been tricky as they just seem to turn off like a light switch but we tried a few different things and yesterday was a successful day with 3 nice ones landed and several misses.
I do have the aerators going and there is a nice open spot, not sure I need it but Im doing it anyway. I'll be testing DO tomorrow.
Here are some pics of the fish, the BRT (brook trout?) in the bucket I put in exactly 1 year ago, and this is the result of 1 year of growth, Im very surprised that it grew that much and was very healthy. The water beetles came out of its belly....and it was full of them. The rainbows were a fall stocking with nothing in them but they are certainly healthy, they look scaled because I scrape the slime off them on the lake and bleed them out on the spot....makes for a tasty fish!
Hopefully the warmer wx starts coming and the longer days will start eating that ice up....with 2 feet of ice in a lake with an average depth of 6 to 8 feet (and several 10-12 foot holes) that means about 1/4 of their living space is gone, there are some deeper spots but we are catching them everywhere and almost always right off bottom - a very good sign for the lake quality I think.
Some pics for ya. Thats the 5th otter i've found that has heart issues - their hearts just stop beating....crazy.
