Amidst the white sky and fluttering snowflakes, my old auger cut through the frozen water for the first time on this lake. Looking for slab crappies, I lowered the fish finder's puck into the hole like a kid coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. I had everything in order, from precisely weighted slip bobber rigs to perfect sized crappie minnows, I was targeting the deep basin where the nomadic crappie should roam, but as time ticked by without even marking a fish, the poet Robert Burns idea that "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry", rang true.

So I had a choice, to continue to pound out holes and look for crappie or go after bluegill. Thinking some bluegill fillets would be tasty I choose them. Erroneously I left the lake map in the truck, and now had little more than a vague idea of where the shallows were. Guessing that the shallows were south, I went there and hit a big weed bed plateau at13 feet. I marked very little fish on this weedbed, so I went deeper now heading back to the basin, looking for the drop off and fishing along the way. Eventually I went deeper, and worked the 19-foot range and started marking fish, but no takers. It appeared that the 19-foot area was another plateau. I kept moving at 22 feet I found a taker, a tiny perch, no skunk! I now could claim that little moral victory.

On the second hole at 22 feet, I iced a foot long perch. Crappie and bluegill were now the furthest thing from my mind. Perch fishing is my favorite ice experience and I couldn't have caught the only good one, I was likely to start unwrapping some presents. I kept using my bluegill rig which is a #10 size glow jig with a diminutive plastic tail, no bait, and a small split shot a foot up from the this tiny lure.

My method was to entice the fish to rise from the bottom, and then keep the lure as still as possible, though even then the lure moves, it just twitches, try to keep it perfectly still in the cold, you can't. Then I wait for the spring bobber to tap and set the hook. The best way to get them up off the bottom is to put the lure just above them, practically tap them on the snout and slowly reel up. The more fish you can raise the better your chances, as they start to compete with one another.

I caught more, these big perch had blaze orange fins, and when they came to the top of the hole they were coughing up inch long crayfish. Not completely rare for me to catch perch with crayfish in the stomach, but normally the perch I get are from a lake's deep basin, where they forage on insect larvae living in the bottom, not crayfish. I envision crayfish living in shallow rock, under and around them, but it is not far fetched to think these juvenile crayfish burrow in the semi hard bottom during winter.

Later I found out this lake was infested with Rusty crayfish, an exotic specie found now in parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario. They are said to come from southern parts of the U.S. and likely brought as bait and escaped. Today the transport of these crayfish is illegal. Maybe the perch caught these crawfish in the shallows, and then found my lure? Hard to say, maybe they came from a deep rock pile? But I wasn't fishing over rock and the map details of the lake didn't indicate excessive rock structure or bottom. So until proven otherwise, I'll remember this mid range "crayfish burrowing" depth found above the basin in lakes housing these exotic species.

The day ended with enough fillets to feed my table. Sure I didn't craft a master plan for perch taking into account the weather pattern, sunlight, and lakes forage, heck as stated I was not even fishing for them. Truth be told, in fishing you often learn how to fish, where, and when by stumbling into situations that you didn't even plan on, because in fishing, events often do not go as planned. Keep Catchin'

Turk Gierke operates Croixsippi guide service year round on the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers, and has won five St. Croix River walleye tournaments. He can be reached through www.crioxsippi.com or 1-715-377-0006.