Got out today for a couple hours around noon. Had a couple of neighbor kids that wanted to do some spearing. Got them going, and then went off to angle for myself.
Set up an icerigger - a really neat outfit that holds your line in a release, holds a regular rod in a holder, and lets you fight a fish with a rod - instead of a tipup. See
https://plus.google.com/photos/1171...2488617165786849?authkey=CLeEqu3rqMKV6wEAnyway, set that up with a minnow and then took another rod with a Lindy 360 jig on it, tipped with wax worms. A friend gave me that and said the perch inhaled it. . No joy. I saw fish on the vexilar. Any movement of the jig and they were gone. Caught a small pike on the icerigger. Switched to a small gold spoon with a minnow head. Same drill. Put a camera down the hole. Big perch would come up next to the spoon, but as soon as it moved they were gone! While all this was going on two more perch on the icerigger. .
So, I switched to a minnow and a float next to the hot hole. And put the camera down. In the next half hour picked up 4 more perch and another northern. Missed a few that didn't get the minnow down. They seemed to be playing with it. Watched one on the camera hit the minnow, the line released from the icerigger, but I could see he only had the minnow by the head. Waited for several minutes - or it seemed that long, until the minnow disappeared.
The lads speared two fish and scared two others. I gave them my fish so they could have a fish fry tonight. (It helped that I had walleye thawing) There was up to an inch of water on the ice, and it was SLICK! I drove the snowmobile (ATV is in the shop ;-( ) back to get some ice cleats before I took a dive. Pray for colder temps and snow!