Good Luck on Last Ice!!!!!

Got a call from Doug Esch and he invited me out to a lake north of Chelsea, said he has been doing very well on it. Fished with Doug, his cousin Ted and his friend Lou. Temp this morning was in the lower 40s and when we quit fishing at 10:00 AM it was in the upper 40s with lots of sunshine and no wind, another great day on the ice.

Doug likes to start early and we did, he calls it O Dark Thirty. We were on the ice and fishing at 6:45 this morning, over an hour before sunrise! Picked up a crappie after 15 minutes fishing and then as the horizon started to get some light the gills started to bite. That bite lasted for less than a hour and things started to slow down. We did some hole hopping and that seemed to help quite a bit as we would pick up an occasional fish. I was using wax worms and those guys were using mousies. We kept 52 gills between 7 1/4 and 8 1/2 inches and one crappie 10 inches.

I took some pictures of the guys fishing on the ice today but when I got home I noticed that there was no memory card in the camera, my mistake. I wanted to post a photo, so when I got home, I took a picture of some of the fish we caught. Lou had a rough time catching fish today so Ted and I gave him some fish to have for dinner tonight. The ice is 10 inches thick and the shore ice is still good. Those guys should have 3 or 4 days of excellent fishing yet.

Last Ice?

Did some running around this morning and I was all done at 3:00 PM so I decided to go ice fishing at Airport Bay. Temps were in the lower 40s with lots of sunshine and a slight wind out of the southwest, which made for a beautiful day.

When I got to the canal to Round Island the 2 by 12 plank was moved to the last possible spot to cross, and the ice was deteriorating pretty fast. Once I was able to get on the canal I noticed that the canal was not in very good shape either. I figured that I would only fish for 3 hours and call it quits because of the bad ice conditions. Once on the bay I talked to 3 fishermen that had been out all morning and they said the fishing was terrible. Fished five feet of water and it was cloudy today, could only see the lure for the first two feet. I fished 5 or 6 holes without a bite so I decided to leave because the crossing at the canal had me worried.

Stopped and fished the Trenton Channel at a couple of places and did not even get a bite so I called it quits for the evening. That should be the last ice fishing trip for the year, now it's fishing off the docks until we can get the boats in mid April. No fish caught today.

Got a report from Louie tonight that he and Kenny did very good on Lake St. Clair today fishing at Compau Bay in front of Candles. He also said the ice is getting bad there.

Next Planned Trip: Friday with Doug E & Ted, in Chelsea

A Foggy Start

Fished Airport Bay on Grosse Ile with Doug Sowa. Temp this morning was in the upper teens and by lunch time it made it to the middle 30s. There was no wind at all today and when we arrived at the bay the fog was so thick you could only see about 100 feet. After an hour of fishing the sun started to break through the fog and it turned into a perfect day for fishing. We started fishing 150 yards east of Round Island in 3 feet of water and we caught nothing. Moved another 50 yards to the east and we started to catch some perch. The fishing was very good for 10 minutes and then the bite just quit. Doug saw one of his fishing buddies, Dale, at the bait store who said the fishing was pretty good yesterday but after 8:30 AM the fished just quit biting. I'll be damed if the same thing happened again today. I looked at my watch, it was 8:40 and we hadn't had a bite for 10 minutes. We thought about moving towards the pack of people by the point and as we watched them they were just standing around not doing very much so we decided to stay put. We would catch a fish every so often but the fishing just shut right down. We kept 20 perch between 7 1/2 and 10 inches.

When we got to the canal to cross over to the Bay someone had put a 2 by 12 that was 10 feet long over the broken ice so you could get across to the canal. When we came back from fishing the weather was warming up and the crossing was getting worse. It might only last a couple more days. If we decide to go back, it just might be a little earlier in the morning. The ice on the bay today was 9 inches thick.

Next Planned Trip: Don't know yet, maybe Wednesday morning since I'm off this week.

Sunrise on Lake St. Clair

Fished with Joe on Lake St. Clair today. Went back to our favorite spot on the Salt River access. Temperature this morning was 13 Degrees and by noon it was in the lower 30's. Wind was WSW 10 knots with lots of sunshine which made for a beautiful day on Lake St. Clair.

We started fishing in front of the yellow seawall in 4 ft. of water. The ice was around 15 inches thick. Stayed here for an hour, then moved 200 ft. towards Cotton Road and fished in about 5 ft. of water. Visibility was pretty good, you could see the bottom and the fish coming towards the bait. Although there weren't many fish they were quite aggressive. I had a large pike (28 inches?) staring at the minnow, but after 30 seconds he moved on. Also had a large bass come in to look at the same minnow, no interest from him either. Joe caught most of the fish today by using a wax worm and a green glow jig. I ran mostly rapalas tipped with mousies and minnows on jigs. We kept 9 perch between 7.5 and 10 inches, 6 of which were over 8.5 inches, enough for Karen and I to have a very tasty fresh perch dinner tonight!

Next Planned Trip: Tomorrow with Doug Sowa at Airport Bay, Grosse Isle

Snow Day

When I got done clearing the 7 inches of snow from three houses we built Shiloh a Snow Bunny. She seemed to like it.

Too much work before going to work!

Sardines Again?

Fished with John this afternoon. Temperature was in lower 30's with lots of sunshine. The wind was out of the west 15 knots, but because we fished in the canals, it did not affect us.

Planned on fishing the Salt River area but I had bad reports from Doug Sowa, who was out there this morning, and John had bad reports from his friends at work who were fishing Selfridge. We drove by Campau Bay where there were only around a dozen people fishing in the middle of the bay. There didn't seem to be any activity when I checked it out through the binoculars. No one was fishing by the flagpole at Candles, which is where we usually fish. Drove by one of the canals we fish on South River Road and it was pretty crowded so we stopped to see what was going on. Talked to a few guys who were catching some fish, so we decided to spend the afternoon here. The ice here was 14 inches thick. You could barely see the bait on the bottom or the fish hitting it.

Today's bait was minnows, waxworms, spikes, wigglers and mousies. Every bait of choice for ice fishing. Caught a couple of perch right off the get-go and thought we had hit into a lucky spot. Things came to a quick stop so John decided to experiment again with his can of sardines. His fishing pole stunk, his hands stunk, the shanty stunk, and when he went for the potato chips, I grabbed them first. After twenty minutes of smelling sardines we moved the shanty twenty feet away so we wouldn't have a smelly, oily hole in the shanty.

Caught quite a few small fish, but we only had five keepers between 7 & 8 inches. We gave them to a person we met on the ice today so he would have enough for a fish dinner tonight.

Minnows seemed to work the best today even though we didn't catch very many fish.

Next Planned Trip: Next weekend with Joe