Good Day Ice Fishing Pickerel

2.82 Pounds

Brian and I got to the lake's edge, me having hauled our gear on his Jet Sled through deep snow, and stood on the ice. Since ice skaters had cleared a space nearby, I almost felt emboldened to simply proceed. After all, it's been down to 12 degrees multiple nights since Oliver & I got on State Park ice a long time ago now.

But inevitably, I wielded my splitting bar, because I'm cautious. That's not to say I haven't taken a plunge into 40-degree water. I did once, in chest waders. I cut through with ease and got a hand and fingers into the hole to figure out what was holding me. There was six or seven inches of snow ice, a two-inch layer of slush underneath, and a half inch of hard, clear ice. 

Brian picked up on my nervousness and called Sam. Right before they proceeded directly out from a point less than a quarter mile distant, I said, "I've never seen anything quite like it." I know snow ice and water underneath, but had never encountered hard ice that thin under it. I felt certain it had been thicker when two feet of snow fell on it and had thinned underneath the slush layer.  

They didn't go though, so out we went, and after trudging long through the five inches of snow on top, we found a better layer of hard ice out there. Maybe three inches. Any case, it held us. We often huddled close together. No threat of breakage. 

As Brian and I foresaw, the fishing would be really good. Five of us began setting a total of 15 tip-ups, and cutting holes for three or four jigging rods. My power auger didn't start, but Sam and his friends had a couple of hand augers. I whacked a couple of  holes with the splitting bar. 

We would have caught even more fish, had I brought along another 10 or 15 tip-ups. I didn't anticipate that the gathering would grow to seven of us. Honestly, that didn't matter. And it should only matter now to motivate me to more effort when I might guess it's called on. We caught 11 pickerel, two perch, and a largemouth. The second-largest pickerel weighed 2.72 pounds. Nothing giant today, but the two biggest were nice fish. A couple of others, including my pickerel, were around two pounds, and the perch were 12 or 13 inches.

I lay in Brian's Jet Sled, my coat, which I never wore, serving as a blanket, the sun hot on my face and burning it red. I told Brian, who sipped on a Miller Light beside me while sitting in a foldout chair and jigging, "I haven't felt this relaxed in years."

And I've done a lot of open water fishing this recent years.  

2.72 Pounds

State Park