I hit the meth hole on the Horseshoe chain today in hopes of catching some channels and that worked out great.
I started fishing about 2:45 and within 10 minutes, I iced a 27″ channel, the biggest through the ice I have ever caught.
I jigged a Lindy Red Rattlin flyer with a minnow head and part of the body with the guts hanging out. The other line I set 3ft of the bottom with a venom bobber set so any little touch would send it down. My bobber line had a red glow demon in size 6 with a minnow head and guts on that hook. I di charge up the jigs quite often for that nice glo red the kitties like so much.
Well, for the first 2 hours nothing would touch my deadstick with the bobber. But my jigging rod did land some nice fish all going over 20 inches along with 3 crappie about 10-11 inches.
About 5pm, I could not ice a cat with the jigging rod but the bobber kept going under. That last for about 45 minutes and then back to the jigging rod and the bobber rod went dead again.
Every fish but the 27 would barely move the tip of the rod on my Mitchell meatstick. So, due to the fact I was missing more than I was icing, I switched to a Thorne rod with a st croix spring bobber on it. That helped a bit but not much as they bite so light. I know I landed 3 cats that were hooked in the whisker due to the fact I hooked them while jigging.
All the cats I iced were above 20″ during the daylight hours and after the sun set, everything was under 20″.
For the majority of the time on the ice. if I saw a mark, I would jig to get it to come up and then you had to let it sit as still as possible. If you moved the bait at all, the fish went back to the bottom. I never caught a cat that was suspended as all came up from the bottom that were caught.
There were times when I had 4-7 ft of solid fish on the screen.
Overall, I caught 29 channels and 6 crappie. So not a bad 3.5 hours at all for a day with finicky biting fish.
It was a wierd time fishing as they were so finicky and the size difference during the light and then all small fish after sunset.
Overall, I worked hard at icing these fish but it was fun. Fighting the 27 on my meatstick with 4# test was a chore also. man did I lighten up the drag as I was not sure what I had hooked and I really wanted to at least see the fish.
Ice conditions were not to bad. I took my wheeler and went on the lake at the access south of the Hwy 22 bridge. Went I went west on the lake and then turned to the north around the point I was a bit concerned as I could see the ice in that area had busted up and di not look that deep. I stopped and rilled a few holes and the ice was approx 7.5 inches. By the Meth hole, I drille only 3 holes in 32fow and the ice was 10″ at the most. Talked to another feller on the way to the Meth hole area and he said he has about 7.5 inches where he was. We sure could use more ice even for the wheeler.
Maybe back tomorrow.
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