Ice fishing is in full swing around the state even in the southern half of the state. This took me south this past weekend to try a lake I have wanted to visit for the last year. I was able to meet up with several friends to search out some bluegills and crappies. The five of us worked well together dissecting the water, hopping around with our Vexilars and trying a variety of depths. We landing on several schools of gills and crappies doing this. Many of the gills were solid keeper size and the crappies were of good quality too. As a group we kept some of each species, but released many of the larger crappies. This is something we have done for the past several years, letting those bigger fish back into the system so they can reproduce for years to come. Of those bigger fish we decided to release was my largest public water crappie ever, a solid 15inch black crappie that weighed 2 pounds and 1 ounce. It was a beast, and I just couldn't put it in a bucket. A few pictures and it was released back down the hole. We also found some schools of catfish. In typical fashion the catfish were suspended in the middle of the water column and fell to spoons jigged with meat.
The key bait for the day was a silver/pink Reins Tungsten Palpuntin Spoon. If you like spoons, you have to take a look at this tungsten version. It has a unique fall and drops like a stone. I love using spoons on the 36-inch Jason Mitchell Dead Meat Stick paired with a Quantum Drive spinning reel with two pound test mono line. Everything about this combo compliments each other and is perfect for hole hopping and dropping spoons on hungry fish.
Get out and enjoy the ice, hopefully we still have 6 or so weeks left here in Iowa to hit the ice.
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