Wisconsin can be hard place to live in the winter for a bass fisherman. It's not quite the same, but every now and then I head out ice fishing. Last weekend I broke up the cabin fever with a ice fishing weekend with an old friend. His family bought and renovated a cabin and property around Lake Winter and did an amazing job. My friend and I were after big slab crappies. Unfortunately in February, in Wisconsin, bass are an unfavorable species to target. And we wanted to fish for something we could eat.
We were using small ice fishing jigs with crappie minnows. I used a Vexilar unit and my friend used a MarCum unit to mark our fish and get our bait in the right spot. We were fishing 40 feet of water and picking up crappies at about 20 feet. We had about 30 inches of ice. Fishing was slow but we caught some each of the three days we were out.
We've talked before about how fishing trips have unexpected events that make them memorable in their own ways. Every day we went out we managed to get the truck stuck, which cost a few hours of fishing in some cases, and sleep in other cases. Snow drifts and sudden blizzards made for difficult transit. We decided to go to snowmobiles, and then managed to get those stuck as well. I won't say that I've never gotten the boat stuck before, but it's always been a heck of a lot easier to get out!
On the final day, over a meal of crappies, we laughed about all our follies and enjoyed a good time between old friends. Hopefully weekend bass fishing trips are just a short stint away.
We were using small ice fishing jigs with crappie minnows. I used a Vexilar unit and my friend used a MarCum unit to mark our fish and get our bait in the right spot. We were fishing 40 feet of water and picking up crappies at about 20 feet. We had about 30 inches of ice. Fishing was slow but we caught some each of the three days we were out.
We've talked before about how fishing trips have unexpected events that make them memorable in their own ways. Every day we went out we managed to get the truck stuck, which cost a few hours of fishing in some cases, and sleep in other cases. Snow drifts and sudden blizzards made for difficult transit. We decided to go to snowmobiles, and then managed to get those stuck as well. I won't say that I've never gotten the boat stuck before, but it's always been a heck of a lot easier to get out!
On the final day, over a meal of crappies, we laughed about all our follies and enjoyed a good time between old friends. Hopefully weekend bass fishing trips are just a short stint away.