Finally....Ice fishing

Hi everyone,

We finally have fishable ice. Fishing a small lake close to home, I found a good solid 3 inches of ice. Unfortunatly it is snowing hard with up to 5 inches expected. That's going to add a lot of weight so I'll have to be more carefull tommorow. But what a fun time today. Taking my time and using the spud bar on every step untill I could determine where it was safe to go, I got my tip ups all set up at 3:30. From 3:45 to 4:45 it was non stop action. Flag after flag. I only caught one Walleye on the tip ups, but lost a dozen minnows. The spindle would spin but the fish were getting the minnows. I was able to finally hook one and it was 71/2". No wonder I couldn't hook them. Also caught a 14"er.

The Walleyes were caught on shinner minnows and I did jig one up with a horizontal bait tipped with a minnow head. Saw a lot of fish on the Vex and had some hit and lost them. Tommorow I'll have some waxxworms because I'm pretty sure some of those marks were Perch. I called it a night after 3 hours. The snow was coming down hard and I didn't bring my portable shelter because of the thin ice and I got soaked with the wet heavy snow.

I want to urge anyone going out to use extreme caution. We need some more below zero weather to make more ice. It should happen soon but untill then be safe. Good luck fishing everyone.

Walleyemaxx