Ice fishing 2020-2021

[BuckSutherland]

I made it out last weekend. Was pretty limited on where I could fish. I was mostly on 4+ inches of ice. I did encounter some areas that only froze up more recently that only had about 2". They were easy to see cause the ice was crystal clear. Fishing wasnt that great, but I did scratch out enough to have an excellent meal. I love making them with a little seasoned salt and paprika and then fry them in butter until they are crunchy. I ate all ten of my fish.

 

[Mortenson]

That's it, I'm going get a bag of panfish out of the freezer now.

 

[H20fwler]

AWESOME!!!!!!

 

[swat1018]

I'll be fishing in shorts and flip flops till Jan 18, then I'll think about it! Lake Okeechobee, here I come.

 

[Mortenson]

So you don't coat them in seasoned flour? Just a little spice then into the butter? I have 34 bluegill filets thawed and am about to try it.

 

[Mortenson]

Ok I just tried a test run. 1 without flour followed by 1 with flour. Flour wins for me. Don't own lemon juice at the moment, so no help there. Very good tho.

 

[BuckSutherland]

I headed north again for the weekend. I LOVE LOVE LOVE early ice. We fished HARD on Friday on one of our proven lakes and basically got skunked. After drilling approximately 150 holes and looking all over the lake and finding nothing we found a few right before dark and kept a couple of crappies and one sunfish. On Saturday, I took my brother in law to a new lake on a dead end gravel road. We have never fished there on the ice and only twice by boat several years ago. By the fifth set of holes I drilled we found the crappies stacked. We were the only ones on the whole lake. Fished there for a couple hours and each took our 10 crappies.

Later in the day we took his new panoptix to another lake that has MONSTER bluegills and drilled about 75 holes all over that 40 acre lake and we couldnt find anything and really didnt even wet a line. Saturday night we had a good crappie fish fry with the neighbor. I make some breaded and then I usually finish with some beer batter so everyone gets something they like. I likely drilled 250-300 holes this weekend. If you wanna catch fish dont stop drilling. Easy to do with early ice.

 

[BuckSutherland]

A few more pics

1. My brother in law's panoptix. I got about a 25 min head start onto the lake and found the fish before he caught up to me. Very cool to see on that screen. Cant wait until we use it and land on a school like that. Yes, those are all fish suspended down there. I ALWAYS fish the highest marks, especially crappies.
2. Homemade sled my bro in law built. Worked good, hope it holds up ok.
3. Caught some very aggressive fish on this rapala. They smacked it.
4. My view at the landing. It was extraordinarily quiet back there. Only one place on the whole lake and a remote dead end.
5. I found some birch chaga when I walked out and dumped the guts in my woods for the critters.

 

[trampledbyturtles]

TTT

Love this time of year, although not quite as much as the archery opener, but fun in it's own right. Happy winter equinox everybody. New age of aquarius to boot. As a famous person once said


Quick tip for anyone that pursues the tip up game. Restringing or tightening the lines is made simple by the power drill..

One thing most probably know but wish I knew sooner.