I went out ice fishing for the second time this year. Both times to Austin Lake with similar results. I'm not much of an ice fisherman seeing as how I don't own an auger yet, but I have 1 pole and some lures and go with friends. Well, I don't know if I'm lucky, skilled, or fishing a lake with hungry fish, but I've had plenty of action, although I'll admit that they all are on the small side. I think it's mostly luck since I happened to tie on a new lure I picked up this fall that was on sale and I haven't retied yet or needed to add bait to it to catch fish. And I've caught hundreds of perch. Probably 200 this past Saturday and atleast 100 or more about a month ago in about 3 hours of fishing each time. The perch we found are on the east half of the lake near the middle to southern end of the east side of the lake. I'll admit that out of those hundreds of fish, maybe 1 was bigger than 9 inches. I'm sure most of you don't like catching dinks like that all day, but I'm like a kid when I ice fish, I just want to catch something, anything. And the action was quick enough that I might even take my daughter out to try it. Back to the luck part, my lure was outfishing live minnows and everything else my buddies tried both times out. The lure is a Lindy Rattlin' Flyer Spoon and color didn't seem to matter. I've been using firetiger and I let a buddy use bright orange color which he snapped off on something and then he tried gold and the perch would just start pecking at it as soon as it dropped. Lots of misses, but each missed hookset caused it to rattle and dart around, and as soon as it dropped back down another one would hit it. It was probably 5-10 hits before a hookup, but the action was almost constant, I enjoyed it. I am not sure the size, I saw there are 2 sizes at Gander Mountain and we were using the larger size. I might have to pick up a smaller size to try and see if that improves the hookup ratio. There are all the secrets for anyone that wants to catch dinks for hours on end like I do.
By the way, I organized my tackle for the second time this year and even organized and replaced nearly every hook on my father-in-laws tackle as a bday gift to him. Can we get some open water and a legal bass season soon!!!
By the way, I organized my tackle for the second time this year and even organized and replaced nearly every hook on my father-in-laws tackle as a bday gift to him. Can we get some open water and a legal bass season soon!!!
