Ice fishing season is done
03-31-2018, 05:30 AM
#1
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
Ice fishing season is done
Well I got dressed and checked out the nearby bay filled with nice pumpkinseeds, gills and crappie. Nobody out and the shore is a mess. Temps are supposed to be in the 50's today and full sun. I decided to end the season on a dry note. The striker suit is in the washer and I'll be putting all the ice gear away for the season. I got out 77 days on the ice.
04-01-2018, 01:00 PM
#2
Fork Horn
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Up on the Milk River
Posts: 459
If you are missing the frozen stuff, come to NE Montana for a excursion, had a friend out spearing on Ft. Peck a week ago, 32 inches where they were, for a couple days it looked like it might start to break, but we have went back into the ice box with temps at night close to 0 and highs in the teens and twenties, maybe 30 for the next week they say now.
04-02-2018, 04:50 AM
#5
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
11 inch sunnie..wow. Not sure I caught any quite that big this season. Lately the bigger ones have been right around a pound in weight and were hard to grab when I unbuttoned them. I did get a gill last spring that was 11+ inches and weighed 1.41 pounds on a certified scale. I doubt our northern fish get to grow anywhere near the same rate as ones in the south with a longer active growing season. I see a lot of turtles here too and try to save them when I see them crossing the road. Late season ice fishing for flat fish always gets a lot of bass, and pike as unintended catch. I iced a nice 6 plus pound largemouth on 4 pound test the other day. I think it was around 22 or 23 inches long. I got it returned back down a 6" hole but had to squeeze it through.
Last edited by Champlain Islander; 04-03-2018 at 03:24 PM.
04-09-2018, 11:38 AM
#7
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
04-13-2018, 09:10 AM
#9
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
I did much better last year almost double but stayed on the yellow perch for longer which normally amounts to a bigger catch. For a variety of reasons I switched over to flat fish (gills seeds and crappie) about a month earlier than normal. Getting my boat ready to start the open water season.
