Ice Fishing with Isaac

Isaac and I went ice fishing this morning in a pond just down the road in Gypsum. The State Wildlife Area we fished in is apropriately named Gypsum Ponds. The pond we fished covers a couple acres or so. We drilled several holes with my new hand auger and fished with our new ice fishing rods. Actually I drilled the holes and Isaac tried to drill a hole or two. He could get started but didn't have the "umph" he needed to get through 13" of ice and he wasn't tall enough to put his weight on the auger. I think the pond has a few warm water fish in it but we only caught trout. They were all little stocked rainbows and I started off just releasing them, but Isaac insisted we needed to keep our limit of 2 apiece. The state limit is 4 but we could only keep two from this SWA, so we brought home two fish each that were just big enough to fillet.

We used small ice fishing jigs called Ratsos that would catch crappie just as well back home or anywhere else for that matter. They are just little painted jig heads with plastic bodies that have a thin pointed tail. I also used a Gentz worm, which is a jig head that instead of one round head it has 3 round heads in a line and painted. We tipped the jigs with pieces of worm or Berkley Power Bait Gulps (looks like a maggot).

Dad's old Eagle depth finder worked good since I rigged the transducer to hang in the holes we drilled. The deepest spot we fished was 14' and the holes where we caught the most was in about 12' of water and they were about 6' down.

I started Isaac with a slip bobber but it kept freezing, which kind of defeats the benefits of a slip bobber. He caught his first with the bobber in place then I took it off and he was still able to catch fish. He did really well having never fished with a spinning rod or without a bobber. He caught around 5 or 6 and I caught around 8 or 9, so it was a pretty good trip. We plan to make some trips to some of the lakes that hold bigger fish next time. Some of the most common possibilities are Lake Trout, Kokanee and Walleye, and of course bigger Rainbows and Browns. One of the lakes we plan to try also has crappie, bluegill, yellow perch, pike, and tiger muskies. Cutthroats and Brook trout are also possible.

The pictures are of Isaac's first and second rainbow. We had a really good time and can't wait to go again. I remember laughing at the little short rods people used for ice fishing. I never thought I would be using one.