I felt surprised we found water about 25 feet deep. We had parked at the East Picnic Area and began walking towards the dike, the pond's 30 acres being a fairly large space. I guess Oliver started cutting holes halfway there.
With deep water not all that far from the bank, I made sure we opened and otherwise cut holes just off that bank over about 10 feet of water. Any pickerel would surely hit there, possibly bass, too, but I wasn't sure the bottom was weedy.
Years ago, I used to walk this far and further towards the back of the pond when fishing on lunch breaks while otherwise working for Affinity Federal Credit Union. I caught bass, and I observed the water. I don't recall any weeds...until I got closer to the back of the pond where it is very weedy, but very shallow.
As I headed for where we'd cut holes today, I asked someone with tip-ups set nearer the pond's back if he'd caught anything. "A pickerel," he said.
So I set a line of five tip-ups along about a hundred yards of bank-front. We had arrived at about 1:30 and had to be out of the park by 4:00, so we'd be packing it in before 3:30. I didn't have much faith in our setup, but Oliver did. In the past, my ice fishing partner and I had always taken at least four hits while fishing this pond. Oliver had set his Jaw Jackers in water at least 25 feet deep, except for one of them set way out towards the swimming beach, where the depth had come back up to maybe 15 feet.
I was glad some of our shiners and fatheads were set out there, because I want to know about any bass. In 2022, we set a Jaw Jacker over 25 feet of water near the dike, which got hit. I had the fish on for only a second or two, though, and couldn't rule out a catfish.
When Oliver caught his largemouth--over 15 inches, maybe 16 inches--in 25 feet of water on a little fathead minnow, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. I've never caught, nor seen bass caught, that deep in 49 years of ice fishing. It makes sense they'd go that deep, because the water's a little warmer, but do they inhabit the pond's deepest water of 40 or 45 feet? I would like to set a device that deep sometime.
Once I got my crampons over my Irish Setter pac boots, I marveled at the stupidity of having ice fished for 49 years without a pair. The ice was slippery today, but it could have been a lot worse, and in the past I've been on ice I shouldn't have been on without crampons. Just last week, I almost broke an arm and almost destroyed my Nikon D7100 camera, which, having hung loosely from my neck, got slammed against ice. What explains that other than stupidity?
When ice as seen in the two photos is slippery, imagine what it's like when like that after the temperature rises above 32. Truly treacherous. I've been on ice like that, and it's almost impossible to walk on without cleats or crampons. That is, when there's a very thin melt, not yet the kind of melt that makes the ice soft. It doesn't always happen. I remember, in 2019, Brian Cronk and I ventured out on five inches of ice with the temp below freezing, having no trouble walking on it. Black ice. Newly formed. No snow on top. The temperature rose quickly to about 50, and we never had any problem with slippery ice. As we walked out, the ice was soft on top. Maybe if the temp had risen only to 33 or 34, it would have been slippery. Not sure how it works out.
Apparently, the temperature today never got above 29. Holes froze up pretty quickly.
I'm linking to my first ice outing on the pond, my son's, too. It seems impossible that was seven years ago. You probably hear all the time about how fast time goes by, but it really does pass quickly. I'll give you a little advice, if you're interested. Get out and fish. We both know life consists in more than just fishing, anyway, so I see no harm in persuading for just a little more of it, perhaps. I wouldn't worry about fish populations. Oliver and I talked about how infrequently we see guys in their 20's out there fishing. Give fishing another five generations and you might worry about fish populations even less. I, for one, love to spend hours absorbed in reading a book, instead of fishing. I'm no intellectual genius who can read a page per second, though I'm informed that what you see in Good Will Hunting is no lie. There are people who can do that. No, I will lay back with a book deeply absorbed in it for as long as three hours at a time. Everything else going on around me tuned out. That's a longer span of time than Oliver and I fished today, and it's deeply rewarding to do that. But it's rewarding to fish, too, and you can measure the fact against your ability to remember fishing outings. You probably remember many throughout your lifetime, while daily chores are forgotten as easily as the daily news.
