Mitchell Lake

[Freedom81]

I spent half the day on Mitchell on Saturday. My in-laws live on the North side, so that's where I accessed the lake. I got about 30 feet onto the lake and figured I should check the ice...

I drill a hole another 20 feet out. As I'm walking the 20 feet back to my sled to grab my skimmer, I hear the ice popping and cracking REALLY loud. I'm thinking to myself, man the sun is really making the ice crack, only to look up and see a Ford Ranger doing 30-40 MPH coming towards me around the edge of the lake. He waves at me as he drives right over the hole I just drilled. I don't wave, I just shake my head. I walk back to the hole and measure 8.5" Can't fix stupid.

So, I walk to the area I wanted to be, drill a few holes and end up fishing in 16 FOW. Caught a couple nice sunnies and a decent bass right off the bat. I hole hopped a little from 14' to 18', catching a fat 8.5" sunny. The wife was joining me, so I set up the house in 16'. Caught probably 20 more sunnies, a snake northern, and a 14" largemouth. Most sunnies were caught with wax worms and red euro larvae, the bass, northern and a couple big sunnies were all on fathead minnows. The bite shut off at dark. We kept 8 sunnies and the wife wanted to keep the bass. Overall, a nice day on the lake.

[jigginjim]

Sounds like you both had a interesting day. Good job getting the wife out fishing with you.

[dfv87]

In past years I always liked the deep 30' hole in the center (usually some houses out there. Pretty good lake for action and variety of fish. You can catch Sunny dump Perch, BAss Pike eyes all from the same hole over the course of a day... nice job getting out.

I hear ya on the truck though... Yikes.

[20lbSloughShark]

Sounds like someone I saw on Pleasant lake last year. I was out fishing on around 9" of ice. There were some wheelers out, and bigger houses, but not far. As I sit there, a big Tahoe towing a fish house about 12' long comes straight out on the lake. Doesn't stop to check ice or anything. It turns right and continues all the way around the shoreline to the entire other side of the lake. I even took a video on his way back after dropping the house, as I was sure it was going in. I have never heard ice make so much noise. Some people really are not smart enough to fish. Worst part is there were others in with him.

-Tom