Just warming up....

[Tony Livingston]

for the real ice fishing season that is. We've only got about 1/2" of ice right now, but I needed to get out...so, I swept off a clear spot, sat down on our swim dock, and dangled my feet....after kicking open a hole to drop the transducer through.

It's not the best spot for winter fishing, but we do what we must....and this was the only spot remotely fishable on our ponds. I was hoping I might be able to draw in some hybrid gills with some aggressive jigging, but naturally something else showed up instead:

At least it put a bend in my rod.

A homemade spring bobber, under tension from a size 12 ice jig:

A view of the screen, set for split-screen display in this photo. The right hand half of the circle, is showing distance from the surface to the bottom, while the left hand shows only the bottom six feet of the water column. This enables me to concentrate on only the lower depths, which is where a lot of the action takes place in the winter. You can see the bottom, indicated as a black "barbell" at the 8' mark on the right side, while the left shows bottom as a "0"...right where the red starts. The solid red below the bottom mark is an indicator of what the bottom content is like, (fairly solid), while the yellow and blue colors above the bottom indicate another type of return echo, probably from vegetation.....filamentous algae most likely.

The blue line with black borders is my jig, which will move in real time with my jigging motions. That large, clear area between the top and bottom (where my jig is located), is where you want to see another return echo...indicating a fish.

You'll notice it's blank!! Not a fish to be seen.

[Slip Sinker]

Haha this is awesome Tony! Get those preds out of the way! I wish i had a ice fishing flasher to play with.

Have fun there buddy!

[John Sheehan]

Haha this is great! Love that special spring bobber setup!

[Tony Livingston]

Think I may head back out...beats sitting on the couch wishing for spring!

[DAVID L EITUTIS]

GOOD FOR YOU TONY AND ALL THE BRAVE HEARTS OUT THERE WHO DON'T MIND CHALLENGES.... I'LL KEEP THE COUCH WARM FOR A FEW MORE MONTHS !!!!!!

[Tony Livingston]

Well I tried it again.....if I were fishing for my supper it would be a long, hungry evening. This is a case of my worst fear being realized....ice is too thick to cast through, but too thin to get out on. I did break the ice near shore to retrieve my thermometer, which read 40 degrees even.

We need cold temps to lock this stuff up....don't want a warming trend, as I'm supposed to head to Illinois and ice fish the Herman Bros. property in early January.

Fishing from the dock is fun, but hard to call the fish in from that far away!