New Year's Day Private Lake Icin'

Each year I have the opportunity to fish some great private fishing locations.  New Years Day brought me to one of these areas.  Bluegills, Crappies and Bass are the targets at this pond, and all three were to be had this day. 

Chad Pietig with one of the 9+ inch gills on the day.

I took Chad Pietig and Mark Anderson along today, and we all had a great time.  Fish were coming through the ice pretty rapidly, and when they didn't we didn't hesitate to move and fish another location. 

In total we fished five different locations, with about 20-25 holes drilled at each area.  The fishing was good, but it took a lot of work, and you had to keep moving to catch fish.  We covered shallow water of 4 feet, all the way to about 18 feet of water. 

All locations held fish, but a few were top-notch for the day that took most of our time.  It was all about location, as the fish would hit plastics, spikes, and waxworms. 
The total: CRAPPIE- about 30, most in the 9-11 inch mark.  BASS- about a dozen from 14 inches to about 18inches.  BLUEGILL- estimated at about 80, a lot were small, two areas you could literally catch a 4 inch bluegill on every drop down the hole.  However, a lot of gills measured past the 9-inch mark, and Anderson just missed out on a "true-pounder", as his biggest gill went 14.6 ounces.  This place has "pounders", caught and measured, so perhaps Mark will get his one day too.