Ice Fishing

Season is comning to an end.

In some ways I hate to see the warm weather take away the ice. It always seema that I never get the amount of time on the ice that I hope to each year. On the other hand the warm weather means turkey season! I almost forgot that this column was on ice fishing. The few times that we got out this year were all a great success. Mixed bags of small and largemouth bass, pickerel,yellow and white perch, crappie, and even a few sunfish. We fished in all kinds of weather from single digits with a wind of 30 mph in a local fishing derby to near 50 last week in t-shirts. I have taken on a new passion for jigging. A friend, who in my mind is an ice fishing whizz, has been filling me full of knowledge on the technique. I have to say it works and very well. After trying all combinations I have chosen the swedish pimple tipped with a shiner[dead or alive] to be my bait of choice. Catching bass around 5 lbs.on a light jigging rod is a blast. My jigging technique isn't rocket science I simply drop the jig to the bottom, bring it up one turn on the reel and start. If nothing happens I raise the jig one more reel crank and so on till I find them. The thing I like about this type of fishing is I can move from hole to hole and cover some ground. This weekend we will be hitting my girlfriend Christinas favorite spot and she vows to catch the biggest one. Knowing how much she loves to fish and how good she is at it I have my work cut out for me.