First Ice
Beautiful morning to test the ice, up here, in northern Idaho. The ice was 3.5 - 4" thick of good, clear, ice. We caught three crappie and one (keeper) blue gill, at first light. Once the sun started to come up the fish stopped biting. I'm sure, the high pressure had a lot to do with it. It's always hard fishing on a nice day.
Supper
We wanted crappie for supper, so headed out to my favorite lake, just north of us. As soon as we started fishing, Tom caught a nice, large mouth, bass. The bass was 18", but we released him....they don't taste, that great. We fished to the other end and caught nothing! I looked closer to the shore. What seemed like calm water, was icy slush. No wonder why the fish weren't biting. The water temperature was too cold. Guess, we have to wait until the lake freezes to ice fish. Come on ice......
Ice
Yes, ICE...this is the earliest we have been able to ice fish. We had gone to a shallow lake, near Kalispell, Montana. The ice was 2.5 - 3" thick when we had gotten there. The temperature was about 1 degree F! Lots of ice-making temps. We caught 7 pike, most around 18"...normal for that lake. There are a few, nice ones, but not this time. The ice was smooth enough, I had gotten in some ice skating. By the time we were leaving, around 1 pm, the ice was cracking and starting to break up. Got off just in time, as the ice was starting to rot in the warming of the day (40's).
