Never a Dull Moment
Despite this incredibly frustrating weather if you’re an ice fisherman there has still been plenty to do. Things were looking really good with that polar blast around Christmas time but since then a warming trend has latched on and just won’t let go.
There were definitely a few days that we had local ice but the late duck season got all the attention. That’s a stressful week leading up to 2 days of chaos. Although I’ve usually used up enough energy to just make Saturday count. Ice melting and more options opening up for the birds just complicated things. However the most complicated thing of all is other hunters that weekend. I’m certainly not camping out all night to get a spot and still have the potential for other people ruining it. We did get our plan B spot and despite a rather unorthodox setup had a great hunt with a nice mixed bag of birds. The added bonus was that no one believed me that redheads are delicious and I ended up with 2 of them, which the girls declared the best “steak” ever! I’ve got plenty of pictures however none of them are going to see the light of day on the internet. I never had the time to really stage/camouflage the background and duck hunting spots are even more secret than fishing spots.
The only positive of the warm up is that it warmed up enough to open the lakes back up. Despite how much it sucks to fish out of a boat this time of year those perch dinners aren’t going to catch themselves. Since I don’t have spot lock on the duck boat and instead have to old school anchor out there I really have to pick my days based on the wind. Luckily we had 2 good days over the weekend and there seems to be a lot more perch in the lake vs last season. A mix of homemade perch rigs and Clam Outdoors Speed Spoons did the damage for us this weekend. They were tipped with spikes, minnows, and sometimes minnow heads depending on how cold our hands were. We fished around 50 feet both days and had success in several spots away from the main perch pack on Muskegon Lake. There were some other adventures I really wanted to go on with the open water but time constraints and wind didn’t allow that to happen. I feel like there definitely will be a time for adventure on the big lake this winter/spring.
More than anything I desperately want to ice fish. I feel like the window is closing to get great ice and go on a destination trip somewhere like we did last year. I’m certainly not traveling for panfish or walleye when there are plenty in my back yard. But burbot and things with adipose fins are worthy of an adventure. I am going to get to talk some ice fishing this coming weekend at the Ultimate Fishing Show - Detroit. I’ll be there with Clam all weekend and hope to see some of you there. We’ll have it all, shanties, tackle, rods, reels (the new Katana and Tatsumi reels are amazing), accesories, and Ice Armor. You might find some good prices with the lack of ice too so it will be worth the trip.