winter time pond management

When a pond of 10 acres or so is over run with stunted pan fish, winter is an excellent time to put in some work to improve the overall health and quality of the fish populations. I'm no biologist but why do panfish become stunted?

My Humble Thoughts

-Lack of food, too many mouths to feed in this family and not enough food to go around. A scary reality for this little ecosystem, and it all but ensures that there are no fat kids. 

-Lack of diversity in the gene pool, everyone here is cousins. Seriously though, serious inbreeding can produce some weak stock. 

-Lack of predators, this goes for natural predators and unnatural types that walk above the water. Time for the DNR to open up the bag limit here. 

Plan Of Action

- a modest culling program should be enough on a small body of water to make an impact in bluegill populations

- introduce a new gene pool into the pond

- inject some baitfish 

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Maybe I'm being a bit over dramatic for a small subdivision pond but why not try to make some changes in the way you fish it that could improve the overall health of the fish and fishing. The pond does have a few things going for it though, it gets to 12 feet and in general it drops off quick. Also there aren't too many people fishing it. As we weeded our way through some of the gills this weekend we were pleasantly greeted with a few surprises.  

The future here is looking bright...

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the next generation of ice anglers

Whats better then catching a big fish, or catching a lot of fish?

For me, there is no better feeling then putting my kids on some fish. Dress em warm and bundle em tight and keep your interest on them having fun. Make the trips as short as their interest levels dictates. Follow these steps and you will create memories that both of you can carry forward forever.

next generation ice angler, looking like a freaking stud

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going back to early ice

early ice in lake county illinois

Cold and windy, those are the words that come to mind when I think back on this winter. I often question my sanity for choosing to continue residency here but I do admire the resiliency of our people. We have endured record low temps this winter without even missing a beat. I'm not gonna go on about a polar vortex, negative 42 wind chills, or the consistent snow but I will say we have made more ice this year then I've ever seen. The ice is super healthy and the weather shows no sign in letting up just yet. And, despite all that nasty we have found some mild days to get out on the water. We have even caught some fish. Maybe the fish have been a bit more negative over all but you would kinda have to expect that. I am a firm believer that weather makes a big impact on fish behavior, even under a foot of ice.

ice fishing redear bluegills

As I am a bit lagging in my posting, these photos were from early ice on a few different lakes in the northern section of Lake County Illinois. We did well fishing heavy weeds for crappies and bluegills. If you look hard at my hummingbird display you can make out the bottom three or four feet is almost solid weeds. In fact, if you don't know what your looking at you could mistake it for being bottom. For what its worth, we got most of our bites once we got our jigs down into the jungle. For someone who has become flasher dependent, you almost feel blind fishing in this fashion but, at least the flasher showed you when your jig was in the weeds. Get that jig down there and shake it and wait for your fish. It did feel kinda old school, fishing them without seeing them, but was refreshing at the same time. We have had some nice redear bluegills mixed in with the other panfish too.

the elusive lake county illinois walleye

Early ice didn't disappoint as Neal was able to get a hook in a nice Lake County Illinois walleye. Goes to show you that you never know whats gonna turn up on a panfish jig and waxie. That walleye was healthy and strong and is certainly a fish to make anybodies day. She looked even better swimming away. I'm going to keep hammering away to catch up on my ice fishing trips. Be warned that there wont be many pictures of piles of fish sitting on the ice as I've elected to let my my fish go this winter but you'll get the drift. Sorry if the resolution of these pics are a bit grainy as my whole ice fishing season pics for the blog are coming off my cell phone...

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fox chain of lakes area ice fishing report

Given the bluebird skies and late winter ice, I thought that conditions weren't the best and we were prepared for sluggish fish. Within the first set of holes we drilled we found that the bite was anything but lethargic. These guys were spunky enough that they were hammering spoons dangled 4 feet above their heads. Not a bad start and we had a few gills and a crappie on the ice before even setting the tip downs.

The tip downs produced some very nice perch and these guys were as big as we have ever seen them in here. A few of them hit on the drop before the minnow ever reached the bottom. A good reminder to actually work your minnow as it descends instead of just letting it free fall.

a nice in-land perch

We had one of the best days panfishing yet. Fish came in packs and for a steady 2 or so minutes, you couldn't get the baits down the hole quick enough. But, as fast as they came was as fast as they were gone. That went on and off every 15 minutes or so for a solid 2 hours and gave us enough opportunity to sort out a solid bag of keepers. 

the truck bed of death

Oh, yeah and one consolation bass...

the lone bass of the day

Given the forecast for the next ten days and the solid cap of ice over 10 inches thick, I think we have a couple more weeks of ice trips to go. I'm not so sure how long before I get back out on the rivers but I'm getting that itch, so it may be sooner then later. We will see...

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night bite papermouths

sunset on Lake County ice

The photo above was take with my i-phone using the Photosynth app. It takes multiple photos as you manually pan the phone in a certain direction and stitches them all together. I really like the results even though there is a few areas I can pinpoint distortions. Check out the app, its free.

night bite crappies Lake county style

I had a terrible time catching anything other then 3 inch perch and rock bass. This was the first time fishing in heavy weeds and will say that the Hummingbird Ice 35 I bought a few years back has a hard time clearing the noise in weedy situations. Over open water and sparse cover it works perfect but over moderate weeds its just not as sensitive as some higher end models. I honestly spend 2 hours looking for a wire kink and loose connections thinking the unit was broken. Well I tested the unit again today over clear water

with no cover and back to working perfect. Hmmm... I guess I'm starting to understand the limitations of my equipment.

I'm thankful for good ice fishing friends who keep the conversation going and add the the keeper pile. 

Stay tuned for daddy daughter day on the ice!

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ice fishing report for the fox chain of lakes

The ice depth on our southern lakes are quickly approaching five inches. Snowmobiles and atv's are out in full force right now so foot travel in most places is relatively safe. Taking advantage of some of the firmer ice we made a long trek on a hunch to an area we believed might be an off the beaten path wintering hole.

footsteps on the fox chain of lakes

It didn't take long to realize that the pressure here was 100% local. This was one of those spots where everyone knew everyone but us, and we stuck out like a sore thumb. Not to say they weren't nice to us, in fact they were down right cordial. Small talk and a few anecdotes aside, the fishing was  down right decent. We came from far and wide searching for papermouths and with a good bit of sorting we took a respectable bag.

a fox chain of lakes papermouth pile

Warm weather and some rain looms in the near future and is predicted for mid-week stretching into the weekend. It's supposed to drop down to sub-arctic temps right after the warm front so I would imagine it wont make much of a dent in the ice, we shall see.

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bass through glass

Early ice over a clear northern Illinois lake is almost like looking through a window into the fishes world. A few more inches of thickness and these images will slowly fade to a muted grey. But for now, they offer an almost fish tank perspective into our quarries underwater world. Marked very few today but every one that did come up off bottom ultimately hit. All the ice we found today was in the 1.5 to 2.5 inch range. I'm gonna give it another cold night or two before I try again. Ice isn't being produced at any great rate but at least I got that initial trip in and a few slime-backs on the board.

the fish fighting under the ice

a nice largemouth through the ice

Everyone respect the ice and travel with soft feet. Good luck on the hardwater. Maybe if I get a bit froggy I'll try and punch a hole or two early one morning but my next trip most likely will be an afternoon evening crappie bite.

a wonderful  mixed bag

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refined whitefish tactics

While our first day on Green Bay was spent in the twelve to fourteen foot range, our ride out on the second day  suggested we might try poking some holes even shallower. We fished from ten feet deep all the way in to about six with the best luck in the extreme shallows. These were fish that you didn't have to work up from the bottom. They were cruising fish that were feeding in the shallows and if they did pop up on the flasher they almost for sure were hot to bite.  With the crystal clear visibility we actually were able to get a couple of takes sight fishing.  When I first started thinking about what our first trip to Green Bay would be like, I had always envisioned us sitting out over a thirty foot hole dropping heavy spoons garnished with a variety of meats down to the bottom. Well, this certainly hasn't been the case...

early morning whitefish caught on Green Bay

Standard presentations from the research we did before this trip led us to spoons like the Swedish Pimple in a size four and gold in color. This was noted as an effective pattern used on its own tipped with waxies and minnow heads but also as a dropper fastened below a small jig and swivel. This is an effective rig for quick drops and also for pounding bottom to create quite a disturbance. Fishing such shallow water I felt that this presentation was a bit overkill. We eventually downsized to just a tiny tungsten jig head tipped with a glob of waxies, and we fished these on our ultra-light bluegill rods. This setup resulted in some of the best drag screaming fights of our weekend trip.

my personal best whitefish caught on a bluegill rod

Again, I can't say enough for the tip down fishing on Green Bay, they accounted for a third of our fish the second day as well...

our pile of keepers from a morning of fishing

This trip was a blast and is something I'm going to consider making a yearly ritual. For those who have never been or have thought about it before, I would highly recommend giving it a shot as a destination for the Chicago ice fisherman.

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the whitefish of green bay

Day 1-

With a true passion for all of the different fish found in Wisconsin, me and Neal are always ready to chase a new species no matter where they may reside. This past weekend we spent not one, but two days chasing whites on the vast expanses of frozen water found just outside of Dyckesville Wisconsin.

ice fishing whitefish

With our very first few steps on to the frozen bay, it was easy to see where the congregation of people were setting up camp. Hundreds of shanties grouped together in a semi circle, some set up  just a few short feet from one another, formed a new city on the ice. With big group fishing on community holes not really being our scene, we set up about a half mile outside of "shanty town" more towards the shallows.

another nice green bay whitefish

To say that the fishing was easy would be a lie. With everything new there seems to be a healthy learning curve with catching whitefish. With a high sun and blue bird skies, the consensus from the people we talked to was that the bite was tough all around. The two greatest equalizers we had were staying mobile and fishing tip downs.

be sure to bleed out your catch for best taste

We rotated holes frequently and revisited the same holes that produced over and over again. While most people were hunkered down we spent the entire day shifting gear and blazing trails. Above and beyond fishing our butts off, not one other group we came across was fishing tip ups or tip downs. It seemed like they were married to their jigging rods. What a shame, the tip downs fished with rosy reds just off bottom resulted in nearly one third of all our fish and put us just shy of our two person limit.

neal with our near limit, is that a mullet?

Stay tuned to see how we fared on day number 2...

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one angler i know...

One angler I know has been waiting patiently since getting some new gear for Christmas...

working some fish with a Ice 35 flasher

the result of his efforts 

"flag up" he called it 

Looks like he got his ice fishing season started, more to come from little Lucas's ice adventures of 2012!

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late winter panfish on petite lake

Sorry for the late report but all is well here in Northern Illinois and we survived the Blizzard of 2011. With work early this week and digging out of the nearly 24 inches of snow dumped on us Tuesday and Wednesday I’ve been admittedly quite busy. Nonetheless, I was a part of a large group of friends that made it out on Petite Lake for some late winter ice fishing just prior to our big storm.

petite lake in late winter

It was a very busy day on the lake (which we attributed to a recent fishing forum post) we had never seen so many people out on this 160 or so acre lake. Despite the numerous clans of fisherman, we found a decent pod of fish after our 2nd major move to an almost exact mid lake basin area. Fish were in a negative mood and we had a whole lot of lookers and a whole lot of small white bass. After a couple quick scans from the underwater cameras we quickly came to the conclusion that we were on top of fish and the real challenge was just getting the strikes. Knowing we were on top of a mixed bag of crappies perch and small whites we decided to stay put. I’m becoming a believer that it’s better to stay on top of negative fish rather than prospecting barren water or finding another pod of fish just as negative. The real key is finding a good combination of bait that will induce the strikes and that could take many combinations of jigs, live bait, or plastics. The real key is to keep trying something different and also to be on top of the fish when they actually start to turn on and the feeding frenzy begins...

a nice crappie for neal

petite lake mixed bag of keepers

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pistakee bay- first fishing trip of 2011

Double header fishing, I made it out mid day and fished 2 lakes yesterday. I started on Long Lake which actually is one of the closest lakes to my house that I have never fished. Started on Long around noon and fished the southernmost point from 8 feet out to 16 feet. Water was super clear and marked only 2 fish in the 15 holes that I drilled. Worked up and down and in and out from that point and finally decided that 2 hours was enough to devote to something new (that wasn’t panning out) and decided to travel to some more familiar water. Long was crystal clear water and even through the ice I could see the bottom standing in over 8 feet of water. I figured this clear water might be best left for an overcast day or a night trip. Being so close to the house I will devote some more time in the next month getting to know Long Lake.

I headed back to Pistakee Bay to make something out of my free time. Arrived at 2:00pm and plugged half dozen holes around the shallows surrounding Coon Island. Searched for some bluegills roaming the flats but after 30 minutes I switched gears to deeper water.

2:30pm in deep water (14-16 ft) started to mark big schools of fish right off bottom. Coaxed half a dozen bites from the roaming schools which all turned out to be drum…

pistakee lake drum

Around 3:00pm the big schools of drum seemed to die off! Marks were coming in around 8-10 feet. I adjusted my fishing depth and instantly started to hook up on some crappie! 

pistakee lake crappie

Left for home around 5:00pm. The bite really turned on between 3:00 and 5:00 and was able to land 6 crappies and 2 white bass between those 2 hours as well as the half dozen drum from earlier. Timing seemed to be everything and thank God for ice flashers, it came in handy for honing in on those suspended crappies!

pistakee lake white bass

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