Ice Fishing this Friday

Ice Fishing

My weekend off was more than a museum and a nice restaurant, for the first time in a week I went fishing. It wasn’t planned and I did not expect to go. I got a call from Dave Thursday night that the fish were really biting on a small pond in Rhode Island. I was more than happy to tag along the next day.

We met up about two pm. When I got to the pond, Dave had been there 45 minutes and had already caught fifteen or so fish. I drilled a couple holes and started fishing. We were both jigging. We were using half ounce Kastmaster spoons. Dave was tipping his with a mealworm. I was using waxworms, both can be purchased at pet stores,

We were catching one bluegill after another. After an hour Dave mentioned a couple times that he was surprised neither of us caught a bass. He said it again a few minutes later. A few minutes after that I hear  “Holy smokes”. I looked up and his rod was bent in half. After a decent battle he landed a bass weighing almost three pounds.

In my short time ice fishing I had never caught a largemouth bass. A few minutes later, I caught one that Dave’s could have eaten. It was about 9 inches. We took a picture because it was my first bass. In between our bass, we were still catching bluegills like it was mid-July. The bluegills were so aggressive we were catching some with no worms at all. They were hitting the bare hook of the spoon, although not as many were caught this way.

I then set the hook on a big fish. It took drag and after a minute it came up and I could see it through the hole. I saw a very large bass that I knew was over three pounds. After some gentle pulling, Dave lipped it for me. It was my biggest bass in almost ten years. It was about five pounds. We took some pictures of it and put it back down the hole.

We caught a bunch more bluegills and Dave caught another 14-15 inch bass. We called it a day about 4:15. What a memorable day for both of us.