kevin
02-14-2009, 02:54 PM
With a beautiful day in store with light winds and 50 degree weather predicted it was time to venture north once again. We usually get a few days where the weather turns very nice and mild in the middle of winter and why not spend a day on the ice enjoying what Mother Nature gives us.
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Wanted to try a couple of other areas that I frequent in the summer months and I haven’t been to yet this winter. The area that I started in was a cove off of the main lake and is deep on the front side with the backside having some shallow rock shoals. With the water levels down a few feet one of the shoals was sticking through the ice and that is where I had started.
Drilled a few holes and the water depth was around 13 feet of water and there was baitfish activity in all of these holes. Went to work with my Darter and didn’t take long for that first strike of the morning and a nice fat 2 pound smallmouth came through the ice and nice start to the day. Still working the darter the same way, with light movement of the rod tip and changing color patterns to figure out what offering they liked best.
By mid morning the activity in this cove, after drilling a number of holes was definitely dropping off as I had caught three smallmouths out of this area. Was hoping to get into more fish and hoping they were feeding up to the (http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/085713.jpg) shoal but they vacated the shallows and I went out deeper looking for them. Worked my way out to 16 feet of water and just couldn’t find any activity at all and figured that they have vacated the area and headed for deeper water.
Decided to head across the lake to another area that I hadn’t fished yet this winter and this area entails a ridge that runs across the mid section of the lake. I fish this area a lot in the summer and catch nice largemouth off of it especially on the downward slope of the ridge to deeper water. The top of the ridge generally has good weeds beds and there are also areas that rock piles are scattered in the weeds. Started drilling holes and searching for the location that I wanted to try fishing.
Finally found areas where the water was 13-14 feet deep and there was activity in every hole that I had drilled in that particular area. What I generally do is drill 6-10 holes and once they are all drilled then I start moving from hole to hole searching for active fish. I am not one to sit at an ice hole waiting for them to come to me and my philosophy is to search for them just like I do when I am in the boat.
I run five different color patterned baits and always changing between these until I find what they are more focused on as at times they will look at the bait and not touch it. This is when I switch it up and start working again and usually this will trigger them into biting. I worked this area for a couple of hours and was able to catch 5 largemouths there and the biggest was around 2.5 pounds. Still not the fish that I was looking for as this lake will produce much nicer fish.
The weather was definitely changing at this point and it was getting later in the day with clouds rolling in and the wind shifting from north to south. The largemouth weren’t very active there anymore and figured I might as well go back to where I started since that was the direction that I needed to walk anyway. With the warm temps the holes were still open and made it easy to start moving from hole to hole again.
There were only a couple of holes that had any activity and one hole that was in 10 feet of water I had caught a nice 2.5 pound largemouth. This was the only fish caught here at this time and was a nice way to end a great trip. With weather the way it was and sitting on the ice getting sunburn, life doesn’t get any better than that and you need to take advantage of days like this because we don’t see too many of these here in New England.
Video of the day:
[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ61AKptb0M (http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/124007.jpg)
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/085713.jpg
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/093921.jpg
http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/122006.jpg
http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/124007.jpg
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/133329.jpg
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/144744.jpg
[/URL]
Wanted to try a couple of other areas that I frequent in the summer months and I haven’t been to yet this winter. The area that I started in was a cove off of the main lake and is deep on the front side with the backside having some shallow rock shoals. With the water levels down a few feet one of the shoals was sticking through the ice and that is where I had started.
Drilled a few holes and the water depth was around 13 feet of water and there was baitfish activity in all of these holes. Went to work with my Darter and didn’t take long for that first strike of the morning and a nice fat 2 pound smallmouth came through the ice and nice start to the day. Still working the darter the same way, with light movement of the rod tip and changing color patterns to figure out what offering they liked best.
By mid morning the activity in this cove, after drilling a number of holes was definitely dropping off as I had caught three smallmouths out of this area. Was hoping to get into more fish and hoping they were feeding up to the (http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/085713.jpg) shoal but they vacated the shallows and I went out deeper looking for them. Worked my way out to 16 feet of water and just couldn’t find any activity at all and figured that they have vacated the area and headed for deeper water.
Decided to head across the lake to another area that I hadn’t fished yet this winter and this area entails a ridge that runs across the mid section of the lake. I fish this area a lot in the summer and catch nice largemouth off of it especially on the downward slope of the ridge to deeper water. The top of the ridge generally has good weeds beds and there are also areas that rock piles are scattered in the weeds. Started drilling holes and searching for the location that I wanted to try fishing.
Finally found areas where the water was 13-14 feet deep and there was activity in every hole that I had drilled in that particular area. What I generally do is drill 6-10 holes and once they are all drilled then I start moving from hole to hole searching for active fish. I am not one to sit at an ice hole waiting for them to come to me and my philosophy is to search for them just like I do when I am in the boat.
I run five different color patterned baits and always changing between these until I find what they are more focused on as at times they will look at the bait and not touch it. This is when I switch it up and start working again and usually this will trigger them into biting. I worked this area for a couple of hours and was able to catch 5 largemouths there and the biggest was around 2.5 pounds. Still not the fish that I was looking for as this lake will produce much nicer fish.
The weather was definitely changing at this point and it was getting later in the day with clouds rolling in and the wind shifting from north to south. The largemouth weren’t very active there anymore and figured I might as well go back to where I started since that was the direction that I needed to walk anyway. With the warm temps the holes were still open and made it easy to start moving from hole to hole again.
There were only a couple of holes that had any activity and one hole that was in 10 feet of water I had caught a nice 2.5 pound largemouth. This was the only fish caught here at this time and was a nice way to end a great trip. With weather the way it was and sitting on the ice getting sunburn, life doesn’t get any better than that and you need to take advantage of days like this because we don’t see too many of these here in New England.
Video of the day:
[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ61AKptb0M (http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/124007.jpg)
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/085713.jpg
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/093921.jpg
http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/122006.jpg
http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/124007.jpg
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/133329.jpg
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/265263/20090211/144744.jpg