What an absolute blast today! Went into the double digits hooking fish through the ice on a trib from 8 am to 1 pm. Another gentleman nearby kept up just as well jigging Swedish Pimples with minnows. I used jigs most of the day but also hooked fish on single eggs, mealworms, and even Jigging Rapalas normally used for walleyes and perch when ice fishing. The Rapalas saw really aggressive strikes and hooked a fish I thought may have been 12-13 lbs that was lost at the hole after a 5-6 minute fight. Quite a few fish were landed in the 8-9 lb range with one at 30″ and right on the 10 lb mark. With clear water I saw every strike as fish hit less than 2 feet under the hole. This type of fishing is super fun in this kind of winter and I’d do this all day any day over ice fishing the bay. Something about fighting huge fish through a hole in the ice. There were times when myself and the other angler nearby couldn’t keep fish off of our lines.

It looks as though this is the only type of Steelhead fishing to be done for a while so if you are interested in doing this please give me a call and we can spend a day on the ice cranking in these fish. A couple of the bigger fish yesterday went into 4 and 5 minute fights and arm cramping became a real issue, albeit a welcomed one. I’ll be doing this again soon as it’s just too much fun. While I long for open water to fish and guide on it’s hard to pass up the opportunity of this type of fishing. We usually do not have sustained periods of ice up like we have had this entire month. For me it’s far more satisfying than staying inside and tinkering with my fishing equipment in preparation for the next thaw….because that may be a long time off.

Beautiful day to be out yesterday as you can see in the pics. Took the camera out just a few times as most of the fish went right back so I could get back to hooking more fish. -JB