Winter Solstice is now behind us

[Way north bass guy]

Well, we’ve survived another solstice, the shortest day of the year. Any of my northern brethren know this can be a dark, cold, dreary time of year, when you hardly get to see your own yard in the daylight, if your working relatively longer hours. But the good news is it’s gonna start getting brighter, slowly and hardly noticeable at first but within a few more weeks the sun will start getting stronger, and with it, the flicker of a hope that things will soon start to “warm up a bit”. 

Hold strong my cold northern neighbours, before you know it we’ll be backing boats down the ramp once again. 

[A-Jay]

A-Jay

[Heartland]

Now that the sun has reached it's lowest point in the Southern Hemisphere, it will not move perceptibly for the next three days.  It will then move to the North 1 degree which will signal it starting its move back to the Northern Hemisphere with warmer days to follow.   This was a significant event in ancient cultures.

[TnRiver46]

Longer days means more fishing time! I'm not a fan of night casting 

[Big Rick]

On 12/21/2018 at 7:00 PM, Heartland said:

This was a significant event in ancient cultures.

It's a pretty significant event for MY culture!!  I despise winter and I live in the South!  These short days are the pits. Even in Ms the sun has set by 4:45PM. That's just depressing...

[soflabasser]

We are still in the middle of winter now and most states have to wait several months before its warm enough to be out in a t-shirt and shorts. The plus side is there is some very good ice fishing going on in some northern waters at this moment in time.

[Gundog]

8 hours ago, soflabasser said:

 The plus side is there is some very good ice fishing going on in some northern waters at this moment in time.

Yea. Caught my limit and now I'm putting them in the freezer so they don't go bad. 

 

[TnRiver46]

15 hours ago, soflabasser said:

We are still in the middle of winter now and most states have to wait several months before its warm enough to be out in a t-shirt and shorts. The plus side is there is some very good ice fishing going on in some northern waters at this moment in time.

I had to strip down to a t shirt on the water Wednesday. I was getting sweaty 

[J Francho]

We might hit 60 today.  Next week, we're probably gonna get a couple feet of snow.

[soflabasser]

7 hours ago, Gundog said:

Yea. Caught my limit and now I'm putting them in the freezer so they don't go bad. 

 

LOL! I know the freezing winters up north are miserable with all that snow but I would still like to try ice fishing at least once especially for fish like muskie, pike, and lake trout.

[OCdockskipper]

I know it sounds odd, but the bass in my lake (& all So Cal I would guess) react to this event.  Not specifically on the 21st, but typically 10 days to a week later their activity level picks up.  It is more reliable than water temp to predict what they will be doing and where.

 

Even though they won't be on beds for another 6 to 8 weeks, we will be entering prespawn over the next week or so.  They will stay a little deeper for a week or two & then weather permitting, all heck breaks loose.

[12poundbass]

On 12/21/2018 at 7:46 PM, Way north bass guy said:

Well, we’ve survived another solstice, the shortest day of the year. Any of my northern brethren know this can be a dark, cold, dreary time of year, when you hardly get to see your own yard in the daylight, if your working relatively longer hours. But the good news is it’s gonna start getting brighter, slowly and hardly noticeable at first but within a few more weeks the sun will start getting stronger, and with it, the flicker of a hope that things will soon start to “warm up a bit”. 

Hold strong my cold northern neighbours, before you know it we’ll be backing boats down the ramp once again. 

I'm a glass half full guy, but you and I know even though the days are getting longer for us and the sun is getting closer we still have all of January, February, March, and if it's anything like last year a week or two in April. We never really got a spring, there was cold and snow then BAM 80 and humid. 

2 hours ago, soflabasser said:

LOL! I know the freezing winters up north are miserable with all that snow but I would still like to try ice fishing at least once especially for fish like muskie, pike, and lake trout.

I'll give you my address, you can come up and fish my lake for Pike while I watch the look on your face go from excitement to pure disappointment in a matter of hours from my recliner in my warm house. ? 

 

I'm sorry but it's boring. You aren't missing much. 

[soflabasser]

6 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

I'll give you my address, you can come up and fish my lake for Pike while I watch the look on your face go from excitement to pure disappointment in a matter of hours from my recliner in my warm house. ? 

 

I'm sorry but it's boring. You aren't missing much. 

 A lot of people on this forum say ice fishing is boring but I have seen several YouTube videos where people are having a good time ice fishing. Yes ice fishing for little yellow perch or bluegills through the ice might be boring but not ice fishing for bigger fish such as muskie, pike, lake trout, etc. I doubt I will be bored ice fishing if the pike are biting well, especially big pike. Any muskie in that lake? I know Wisconsin has awesome muskie fishing and I would be fishing for muskie more than bass if I lived in Wisconsin. 

[Gundog]

28 minutes ago, soflabasser said:

 A lot of people on this forum say ice fishing is boring but I have seen several YouTube videos where people are having a good time ice fishing. Yes ice fishing for little yellow perch or bluegills through the ice might be boring but not ice fishing for bigger fish such as muskie, pike, lake trout, etc. I doubt I will be bored ice fishing if the pike are biting well, especially big pike. Any muskie in that lake? I know Wisconsin has awesome muskie fishing and I would be fishing for muskie more than bass if I lived in Wisconsin. 

Trust me. @12poundbass is correct. It was so boring that I did it twice. I couldn't believe something with fishing in the name could be that boring. It was. 

[Way north bass guy]

When your on a lake where this is the average size ( that’s a 36” rod for reference), it can be a pretty fun day. But I’d still rather fish from my boat though ( only another 3-1/2 months or so to go).

[12poundbass]

1 hour ago, soflabasser said:

 A lot of people on this forum say ice fishing is boring but I have seen several YouTube videos where people are having a good time ice fishing. Yes ice fishing for little yellow perch or bluegills through the ice might be boring but not ice fishing for bigger fish such as muskie, pike, lake trout, etc. I doubt I will be bored ice fishing if the pike are biting well, especially big pike. Any muskie in that lake? I know Wisconsin has awesome muskie fishing and I would be fishing for muskie more than bass if I lived in Wisconsin. 

If you're on the fish yes it can be fun. The beer drinking is a blast. Remember fish are cold blooded so their metabolism is really slow, so fish don't feed as often. If you have an $8-10k set up ice fishing isn't horrible, but still a lot of work. Think about it, drive out to the spot if you have the nice set up, if you don't you're pulling a sled or a shanty.

 

You get to a 'spot' unload your anger, again if you've got the set up you coughed up $500 for a power anger, if not you have a hand anger and are drilling through usually 8" or more of ice. You drill the hole, clean it out, again if you have the 'set up' you coughed up at least $400 for a flasher, this is where things can go your way or not. You drop the transducer in the hole and you see no fish, so you move and repeat.

 

If there's no flasher you sit on a bucket for and hour with no bites because there's no fish there, but you don't know that because you don't have a flasher. You sit that hour on your bucket and keep telling yourself "I'll give it 5 more minutes". You eventually move and drill another hole and repeat over and over. If you have a hand anger drilling through more than 6" of ice gets old real quick even with good blades. 

 

I could go on and on, about ice build up on your line, your line getting tangled in the snow and ice chunks, taking your gloves on and off 150,000 times in a day. Don't forget it's cold and your sitting on a giant ice cube! No matter what you do your feet get cold. 

 

As for my lake, there are no muskie only pike. Where I am Musky are truly the fish of 10,000 casts, they are that few and far between. As far as the fun videos goes keep in mind that's probably the finished product, and there's probably hours upon hours of thumb twiddling left on the editing room floor. I don't know if pike and musky school up but if you found a 'pack' of them it could be fun. 

 

So there's ice fishing in a nut shell. Trust me I know a ton of guys who love it, my step dad does. It's not for me, I applaud the guys who do it. As for me, I'll probably set some tip ups go back to my house and check them from my back porch from the warmth of my house. ?

 

[soflabasser]

I still want to try ice fishing and will plan a ice fishing trip in a future vacation. Being in the freezing cold and waiting for several hours for a fish to bite is not very fun compared to fishing in warm tropical weather that is for sure. With that said I consider ice fishing a new challenge in fishing for me and it is something I have been planning for years. I researched a couple locations that offer very good ice fishing and will continue to research other locations. I got no problem using live bait so you best believe I will use live suckers or other live bait under the ice for a muskie, pike or any fish that gives a decent fight. Seen videos of tip ups ice fishing it looks like a unique way to catch a fish.

1 hour ago, Way north bass guy said:

When your on a lake where this is the average size ( that’s a 36” rod for reference), it can be a pretty fun day. But I’d still rather fish from my boat though ( only another 3-1/2 months or so to go).

Very nice lake trout. Must of been a blast catching it on light tackle.

[Way north bass guy]

When you get a good laker under the ice to hammer your jig, and he’s almost up to the surface then decides to go straight back down to bottom ( sometimes as deep as 100’ or more), and you can do nothing but hold on and wait till he stops, then start over again, the cold just disappears for a while!

[soflabasser]

23 hours ago, Way north bass guy said:

When you get a good laker under the ice to hammer your jig, and he’s almost up to the surface then decides to go straight back down to bottom ( sometimes as deep as 100’ or more), and you can do nothing but hold on and wait till he stops, then start over again, the cold just disappears for a while!

That sounds like something I will enjoy doing very much. Don't think the cold weather would bother me much if I am catching hard fighting fish. Reminds me of the blackfin tuna I have caught on vertical jigs, they hit the jig extremely hard then proceed to make several powerful runs that easily strip lots of line from the reel.

[Way north bass guy]

They’re not the best fighting fish, but anyone that tells you a laker doesn’t fight much has never caught a big one. I’m lucky to live in an area of Ontario where there’s some absolute monsters, and have caught at least a couple dozen over 20lbs all the way up to 40lbs and I can tell you they will pull like a dump truck, especially on lighter tackle. I used to guide on Georgian Bay and I’ve had fish that hit while downrigging that you can’t even move and that’s with a heavy rod and 20lb line. Had them snap downrigging rods before, they are a tough critter, especially in areas where they’ve never seen a lure before. 

In my area of Georgian Bay, it’s an almost untapped fishery. I was on an episode of full contact fishing with Chris King and Eric Lindros about 15 years ago, and we filmed the entire episode in 2 hours, that’s how much action there was. 

[Fishing Rhino]

On ‎12‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 3:37 AM, Gundog said:

Yea. Caught my limit and now I'm putting them in the freezer so they don't go bad. 

 

What's your favorite way to cook 'em?

[Gundog]

10 hours ago, Fishing Rhino said:

What's your favorite way to cook 'em?

Simple recipe...half a small glass of bourdon with a few cubes.  

[.ghoti.]

Simple recipes are sometimes the best

 

Marinate one small ice cube in two ounces of ancient bourbon. 

Sip and repeat.

[MN Fisher]

24 minutes ago, .ghoti. said:

Simple recipes are sometimes the best

 

Marinate one small ice cube in two ounces of ancient bourbon. 

Sip and repeat.

Even simpler

 

Two fingers of Tullamore Dew in a glass - imbibe - repeat as needed.