East coast Ice fisherman

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Comment by Jim Gronaw on February 12, 2014 at 5:12pm

Nice fish, John!

Hey...I'll get back to you on the perch article you wrote, been crazy here with power outages and snow and lack of heat. Sorry for the delay!

Comment by John Sheehan on February 12, 2014 at 11:24am

Better fish so far 2014 .

Comment by John Sheehan on February 12, 2014 at 11:16am

So far I've been on the ice four times now .6 species caught :Gills, Pseeds, White Perch ,Yellow Perch, Crappie and Bass . Details of effective lures ,catches and pics  at: http://bigbluegill.com/photo/albums/hardwater-2014

Best catches were caught on spoons/dead shiner head or tail.

Comment by John Sheehan on February 12, 2014 at 7:51am

Thanks for the report Jim and great job ,especially the Bass! I'll post some accounts of my results later . It's been a decent Crappie catching year for me but Perch ,Gills and Bass have been small .

Comment by Jim Gronaw on February 11, 2014 at 10:04pm

Some of the better fish from this ice season...

Bluegill on the Rap, above.

Nice perch on the Kastmaster.

Personal best 'ice bass', above, went 22 inches. Still swiming!

Comment by Jim Gronaw on February 11, 2014 at 9:58pm

Still can't seem to cash in on any amount of panfish, although I am trying my best to target them. My totals for 6 trips on the ice are as follows...

Bluegills...6 total, biggest at 10.5 inches, all over nine.

Yellow Perch...9 total, five from 11 to 12 inches.

Bass...25 total, biggest at 22 inches, 15 between 17 and 22 inches.

The bass tally is a huge surprise to me, especially the bigger fish with many 18 inch plus fish. I am catching most of them from one of my best bluegill ponds. With 10 inches of ice right now, I am pretty sure I'll be on the ice safely til almost March. Perch and crappie are picking up at some southern PA lakes.

Almost everything I caught was on the 1/12 or 1/8 oz gold Kastmaster spoons tipped with maggots. Caught a few fish on the smaller perch patterned Rapala Jigging Rap with maggots on the center trebles. Bass and gills 3 to 5 feet deep, 1 foot off bottom and perch in 6 to 10 ft, one foot off bottom.

Comment by John Sheehan on January 31, 2014 at 8:38am

In the past my favorite ice bait, for Perch and Gills  has been the mealie  but this year so far , it's the waxie . http://voices.yahoo.com/ice-fishing-wax-worms-10715439.html  Minnow heads and Tails on a spoon for Crappie and Larger Perch and a Perch eye on a spoon can't be beat at times however .

Comment by John Sheehan on January 29, 2014 at 4:35pm

Personal best ice Crappie today 13.5" Hope to break that real soon . Dink Perch and Gills on staright line combo  till the Crappie showed up .Four Crappie in Nungesser spoon tipped with shiner heads and tails.8fow .

Here are the reports  of the four trips on the ice so far this year : Finally got on the ice with my brother 1/9/14. My first fish (Crappie ) ,took a 1/4 oz. Hus spoon /Gulp Maggot .Greg did good on his chenille ties . I caught on 4 rods. The Tandem, Marmooska /Genz worm worked good .My marabou bloodworm caught a few . Jigging Rap/Perch eye ,Small jig with spinner bait rubber also caught .chartreuse Crappie nibbles turned the fish on .
Our tally, using various jigging rods and Lures tipped with Berkeley Crappie nibbles, Gulp maggots ,Perch Eye : 3 Crappie,2Pseeds,1 BG,1Bass,1 White Perch ,about 6 or 7 Yellow Perch The Crappie were only in 9-7 fow around fallen tree branches from a tree that hung high above the water. We only caught one fish in 20" all the others were 10-8fow. Early ice on my home lake I usually do best 8-12 feet and come mid ice a bit deeper, say 10-25fow.Light biters except for the Bass and the Larger Pseed.
2nd )went alone two perch cupsaw .fished two hrs. 3rd)Vernon Valley Lake .Lot of guys out catching Bass and Pickerel on tipups .The Gills about 20 between me and my brother loved the mealworms and waxies on the beaded nymphs we tied and used .Also got a Pseed and a Bass on the brown beaded nymph ,grey tail feather/ mealie. Also the micro jig tipped with waxies was my most productive lure .The straightline combo was happening toward the end for me .fished 12:30-4:00 .Wet snow!!
4th ) 1/29/14 Fished 1:30-5 pm Low 20 degrees .a few inches of snow on Cupsaw lake .Started out over 11fow and through about four holes caught plenty of dink Perch and Gills .The fish were hitting 9'-7' area.Moved into 8' and got a few small Perch and Gills but an inch or two bigger thatn what I was catching before .Straight line combo 3# test small feather jig ,and Marmooska tipped with waxies were the ticket ,same lure with mealies or spikes caught some too . The Crappie ,four from 11- 13.5 "s ,hit between 3:45-5pm when I banged it up .Dead shiner heads or tails on Nungesser spoon .Lost a spoon on a hook set on the 4lb leader .Stayed with 6# test and caught 4 on the Eagle claw rod . Pain fishin' the 2#test in the wind on the spring bobber rod ,I stopped using it .

Comment by Jim Gronaw on January 26, 2014 at 2:28pm

Thanks Bruce and John! I hope to get out somewhere this week as cold weather remains. Have a few PA lakes that yield numbers of eating sized panfish, but it's gonna' be hard to turn from those bass if they continue to bite. Might ride that horse a while longer yet.

Comment by John Sheehan on January 26, 2014 at 7:21am

You've been doing great Jim !!  Unbelievably  scores of Big Bass. Still looking for my first ice Pickerel ,maybe Shepherds lake this week I'll get one .

 Decent score on Vernon Valley lake .Brother and I each got about a dozen Fish . I jigged up  a small Bass and one Pseed ,the rest were Gills and mostly female. Brother Greg caught a few seeds and the rest Gills and again mostly females . Hand tied beaded nymphs tipped with mealies worked good for me . The bass hit a brown Beaded nymph tie in above a 16th ounce bell sinker "pounding weight ".The hot jig for me which produced all but three fish  was a purple micro jig with waxworm .

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