First ice fishing trip

I had planned on snowshoeing today after work. The two places that I went were not plowed out so I had no where to park. I gave up on snowshoeing and decidedto go ice fishing I stopped home and get my auger, jigging rod, and waxworms. since I wasted so much time on my failed snowshoeing jaunt, it was almost 4:30 by the time I got on the ice. There were a couple of holes that had skim ice, so I broke through two of them. I didn't have to dig my own holes.

I jigged in the first one for 30 seconds without a hit. I tried the second one and within seconds I had a hookup. After a brief but spirited battle I landed a 16 inch rainbow. I was pretty shocked to catch a nice trout as my first fish of the year. Between getting out of the car and pulling it through the ice the span was less than three minutes. I'm going to consider it a good (great!) omen going into 2018.

I only had 30 minutes or so to fish. I ended up with two small yellow perch and a pretty bluegill besides the trout. Not a bad way to spend a half hour.

Ice seemed to be about 8 inches thick on the pond.