First Ice Fishing Trip of the Year

I finally made it out on the ice this weekend, as Spencer and I loaded up our poles, and auger to try our luck at some of Iowa’s finest fish species, the bass and the bluegill. We started out on a half acre pond that is hidden away in Pleasant Creek State Park and after some quick success there, tried the main lake.

It was apparent that no soul had fished this pond this winter as there was no tall-tale sign of footprints or holes in the lake. We quickly nailed in a couple of holes near the deepest part of the pond and soon a few fish were spotted with the Vexilar. We continued on for a couple of hours catching a fair share of ‘gills and one bass, and the great thing about this pond was that we were sheltered from the snow storm and the unusually strong winter winds. However, it wasn’t too long until we wanted to chase after some crappies and some walleyes. We packed up the sled and made the one mile track back to the truck. As we drove to the lake it was easy enough to tell that we would soon be facing the winds and the full strength of the storm on the unsheltered lake. Ten minutes on the lake and with a couple of fish just spotted on the sonar the 40 mph (my approximation, it felt like a Category 5 hurricane to this Iowa boy) hit our small shelter. In disbelief, we were soon being pushed around on the lake in the sled-like shelter and we had long lost the holes we were fishing out of after we were pushed off of them by the wind. We made our way out of there after the battle of putting down our shelter and helping a lone fisherman next to us take down his, it was a good way to start off the year and I most likely won’t be so eager to head out on the ice again (or at least until I forget about being blown off the lake, so I’ll be out in two days then, surely I would forget by then). Good luck and good fishing!