Ice Fishing the Better Part of the Last Two Days

I had the last two days off from work. The weather lined up perfectly for me to enjoy some ice fishing. From Monday night until Thursday morning we had bitterly cold weather. Tuesday and Wednesday and even Thursday morning had am lows under ten degrees. I couldn’t have smiled any more. I knew the weather was going to be in the high twenties and low thirties for my two days free of work.

Thursday I fished three different ponds with very mixed results. The first lake I fished was Turnpike Lake off of Route 1 in Plainville, MA. This lake is full of pickerel and some bass. I bought some shiners and expected a lot of action. Wrong! I fished with four tip ups for two hours and never got a hit.

Tom's first fish on his own ice fishing equipment

I went home for lunch then I tried a small pond in South Attleboro named Lake Como. This place really weeds up in spring. I’ve always thought it might hold fish since its basically unfishable from early May on. Unfortunately I didn’t find any fish here either. I was also surprised at how shallow the water was. I couldn’t find any water over 3 feet. The only saving grace was that I sat in my car most of the time since the parking is adjacent to the lake.

After my two strike outs, I met my friend Tom for some fishing in Lincoln. Tom had only ice fished once or twice a decade ago. He had never caught a fish on his own gear. I really hoped he would catch something, so I could write about it. The pond we fished is loaded with sunfish and some big bass. We opened up some holes and started jigging. Tom got a sunfish and I took a picture. I finally ended up with some fish myself. My total was a bass of about 11 inches and about twenty sunfish. I fished until almost dark which was about thirty minutes longer than Tom. Finally my gloves got too wet and cold and catching fish was no longer fun so I left. Sadly, I did not convert Tom into becoming an ice fishing enthusiast. None the less, I’m sure we will carp fish together come spring.

Friday-

By Friday I was done trying new spots. I had tentative plans to ice fish on Falls Pond with my friend Dave. I went down to the pond about 9:30 and started drilling holes with my very dull hand auger. Dave called me shortly after that he was on his way. For the first few hours (yes hours) fishing was very slow. Between us we ended up with two crappie, one perch, and a handful of sunfish. We had about fifteen holes drilled for jigging. Dave had to leave sometime around 1:30. For the next hour after Dave left I caught couple more sunfish. In all this time I had four tip ups baited with small shiners. In four hours, I never got a hit on the tilt while Dave was there.

Sometime around three, I got a flag, my first of the day. It ended up being a bass of about 11-12 inches. Three minutes later another went off. It turned out to be a medium size yellow perch that fully engulfed the shiner. I thought, man there really hitting now. Then the tip ups went silent again for the next two hours. Luckily, fish started hitting my waxworm tipped spoon. I started jigging up fish more consistently. I caught bluegills every few minutes with a perch or two mixed in.

I also jigged up a beautiful rainbow trout. It was a real decent size one. I didn’t measure it but it was about 15-16 inches and two pounds. I apologize; the pictures do not do it justice. Its colors were absolutely gorgeous.

A very fat egg filled yellow perch

Close to dark and almost time to leave a flag went up. I ran over to it and set the hook. I could feel that whatever was at the end of my line had a little bit of weight to it. When I finally got it out of the water, it turned out to be a 16 inch largemouth bass.  After some pictures I let her go. I got a few more sunfish before I left.  All told I fished seven and a half hours Friday and six hours Thursday.

Here are some tips that I hope you find useful.

 If you use tip ups in Massachusetts, why not set out four and jig with another rod instead of putting out the legal limit of five. Time goes by much faster between bites if you’re jigging. I firmly believe that jigging out fishes tilts by a wide margin anyway. You really improve your odds trading a tilt for a jigging rod.

More importantly, make sure your auger blades are razor sharp. I can’t tell you how sore my shoulders are from pushing dull blades into the ice.

 Although I think gold is the best color spoon, I caught all my fish this weekend on silver.

Toe warmers and hand warmers are well worth the money. I used toe warmers on Friday. My feet were on the ice for over seven hours and they never got cold.

Make sure you bring pliers for unhooking fish

16-17 inch largemouth

-Good fishing,

Nick