12-25-2011 Sun

12-25-2011 Sun
1:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Weather: NW 14, clear, 42˚, three to six inches of ice
Location: Mississippi River Pool 7
Caught: nothing
Partners: None

Comments

It was a quick ice fishing excursion close to home today. I specifically wanted to target an area (Fox Beach) where I had done rather well on perch and bluegills two years ago. Today it was a big zero; it seemed as if the flow was too fast to make it a pan fish wintering hole. My second spot was a rather shallow area that I had fished several years ago and had caught one fourteen inch perch. I have wanted to get back there for a couple of years and today I was scratching that itch. The area has awesome weed growth, but the depth is only about two to three feet. Again, I came up with a big zero.
The third and final spot was an area on the north end of the lake about one half of a mile directly west of the Prairie Cut. The area looked good; the depth was about four feet with a hard sand bottom and scattered weeds throughout the area. This final area I just fished with tip – ups and never had a flag.

Observations:

The ice thickness in the areas I fished varied anywhere from four to eight inches. The running conditions with the air boat were quite extreme; the ice was totally bare, there were lots of open water areas and there were many spots where the boat broke through.