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Sub Freezing Temps, and Sleet

Today I convinced myself to go fish for some panfish at my neighbor's pond. It was 27 degrees out, and raining/sleeting/snowing on and off. I suited up in chest waders and a gore tex jacket, on top of many layers of warm clothes, and headed out. My weapon of choice was a 1" gulp minnow rigged on a trout magnet jighead under a float. I caught a small crappie withing minutes of starting fishing, and then landed 2 nice bull gills around 7-8". I had to break the ice off my guides between casts, but luckily I was fishing slow enough that it took 5 minutes or more to retrieve a cast, moving my float 6-12" every 15 seconds or so. The takes weren't consistent at all, I had some fish lightly peck at it and swim off without pulling the float under, but a few fish dunked the bobber like they would in the summer! I ended up landing 3 crappies, 7 gills, and a trout (we caught some in a creek and re-stocked them in the pond). I did land one of the biggest gills I have ever caught in that pond, what I believe to be a hen (hard to tell when they come out of cold, muddy water) @9.5". Hopefully I can stay on them until everything freezes over

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Comment by Lord of the Fly , Rods on December 9, 2013 at 5:44pm: Kudo's for facing the cold, after 4 days of my frozen incarsoration I finally ventured out on the streets and picked up some more supplies for the house, main roads are ok but back roads and parking lots are a sheet of ice, I'm susposed to chase deer this weekend but the roads need to clear before I can get to the Crappy Cabin, I can put up with the cold but all this ice needs to go away. LOFR

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on December 9, 2013 at 9:09am: Love the brave effort.

Comment by John Sheehan on December 9, 2013 at 7:07am: Nice work Nolan! Yup gotta do the float trick in cold water like that .I got 6 perch in a small area by a dam yesterday ,on a plain white Bucktail Jig with a red thread collar.When they didn't bite I popped the float like I was a little mad and then they started biting again !