Wright County Report - 1/8/06 - Find Oxygen

[zebco4040]

After laying low on Saturday trying to recover from the annual winter cold I get, a buddy and I had to decide between Mille Lacs and metro. We choose Metro mainly because of the shorter drive and ability to fish more hours of the day.

As I was printing off landing maps, I remembered the success we both have had numerous times locating pan fish, pike and bass on Clearwater when we located green weeds. As we all know ice fishing has it differences from open water. One thing that has remained constant in my years of fishing is if you find oxygen, you most likely find fish.

We started around 8AM where we have fished open water in the past and did well for multi-species. I had my Marcum OVS400 out for its original "test drive" and I am glad I had it. We punched holes around till we found 10 feet of water. Marked and saw a few fish on the camera but just little sunnies swimming through. Once we found a little deeper water, 20 feet with still some healthy weeds, we found fish. We had sunnies, crappies (only a couple), perch, a few nice bass, and even a bullhead swim through. We had 3 inches of frozen slush, and 5" of good clear ice.

The fish were not tight to the bottom and were fairly aggressive to approach the bait. They were attacking the camera cable because it would move every few minutes. They would approach the bait but only bite the wax warm ends. They did not mind the camera at all and would come in for a photo-op once in a while. I eventually put on a spring bobber and between the spring bobber (my 1st experience and once I got the feel for it, I loved it) and the camera we put a few on the ice. The highlight was when I pulled a 1 1/2 lb bass on ultra light tackle. That was fun, took a quick picture and back down the hole it went. One flag with no one home and a few hours of staring at fish not wanting to bite but interested in what we presented we decided to move to a different lake.

We moved onto a secluded lake that my buddy has had luck a few years ago and it was a short walk to that area. We set up a little further out then a group of houses, we were surprised they were this many out there, and found green weeds. This lake has some good pan fish counts and also some decent eater pike and the occasional walleye. We thought about going to the deep hole, but decided to stay and work the weed edge. We pulled a few more sunnies (all small) but found them the same as on Clearwater, aggressive until it came time to bite. Four flags went up in 10 feet of water, two no one home, a small pike and a perfect 3lber for my buddies’ dad who loves pike. We had 2" of frozen slush and 4" of good clear ice.

I found the most success I had for the sunnies was on Jammin Jigs Neon Tiger Jigs tipped with one waxie. The waxie had to be threaded on the jig with very little tail so they had to take part of the hook. They approached these much more aggressively and caught most my sunnies on it.

Over all it was great to get out after a lay off because of the holidays, and I woke up this morning and the cold has gotten better, maybe I just had a case of the ice fishing blues. Ice fishing is back in full swing for me and now I just have to find those green weeds and get those fish to bite.

[BOUNCED]

[Note from admin: Please stay on topic.]

[Farley]

did you mark schools of fish probably 5 feet down on Clearwater. We started marking these schools around 4:00 and every 15-30 minutes they would show back up, we couldnt get them to bite, and we didnt have a camera so I was wondering if you saw the same thing and checked it out with the camera.

[zebco4040]

[Note from admin: Nice report.]

[zebco4040]

Quote:

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did you mark schools of fish probably 5 feet down on Clearwater. We started marking these schools around 4:00 and every 15-30 minutes they would show back up, we couldnt get them to bite, and we didnt have a camera so I was wondering if you saw the same thing and checked it out with the camera.

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We moved out of Clearwater around 1:00 to move to the second lake. We had some come though on Clearwater suspended at 10 feet in 20 feet of water. We had the camera at 15 so we could see the bottom fins.