Has anyone started ice fishing?

[onwind]

Just stocked some stuffs from Sail this black friday. looking forward to having fun on the ice.

[Giuga10]

Most bodies of water aren't even frozen over, and if they are it's only very thin ice.

It'll still be a bit till we can ice fish.

[Bill]

Some friends of mine have been out on Mitchell lake ...Let you know how the ice is and how thick when I hear back from them

[MuskieBait]

Be safe guys. Just because someone has been on the ice recently does not mean the ice is safe at all.

Weather is too inconsistent to hold any safe ice for an extended period of time, and day to day conditions can improve or deteriorate rapidly, even in the matter of hours. I've been on the ice early season in the past and saw an inch of ice lost within 3 hours...that was going from 4" of "safe" ice to 3"...and we got off the ice promptly. Conversely, I've been out on cold days early season where we gained an inch of ice throughout the day.

Don't rush it and play it safe. Don't go out on early ice unless you have safety gear. I would hate to hear one of our members get into a situation, especially since there are a lot of inexperienced or new anglers here...ice or otherwise.

[MichaelAngelo]

(12-01-2013 01:26 PM)onwind Wrote:  Just stocked some stuffs from Sail this black friday. looking forward to having fun on the ice.

Nice to bump into you there! You were holding quite a nice float rod... tell Alex to stop breaking rods .

If one thing is for sure, it's that ice fishing itself gives me a tolerance to this brutality of cold we suffer for half the year . Can't wait . Being totally honest, last year was the first year I started ice fishing and also the first year in my life where I was sad to see the ice melting.

[Eli]

Could have easily gone ice fishing this past weekend but I was on a course both days.
This weekend coming it's game on for panfish.

[mcfly]

I might be going ice fishing on thursday for pike. Going with a friend though, not sure where his spots are lol

[mcfly]

headed out right now to some ice! wish me luck!

[Eli]

Good luck. Hope the pike treat you well.

[mcfly]

Went out with 2 buddies, checked 3 lakes. 1 had thin and dangerous ice. 1 had 2" of ice (fished for 25 minute before I was too freaked out to keep trying). Spent most of the day on a nice lake with 4-5" of black ice, felt super confident. Although only 1 hookup for the whole day for the 3 of us.

I had a decent pike on but coincidentally I was using my ultralight setup for panfish so within minutes, the pike easily out did my 4lb test mono! The line came back with abrasion on the end so I'm guessing the pike just swallowed my whole jig + minnow whole. Then when he dived back down fast, his teeth cut my line. I was using a center pin so line pressure was very gentle.

Was really cool first ice fishing experience in over 10 years and very cool to drill our own holes instead of renting out a commercial hut. Very awesome that the Pike I hooked into came up and slammed the top of the ice just to show me the size and beauty of the beast before he got away!

You can't always go home with a fish, but being on the ice really made my day. I look forward to going out again soon! If anyone has an auger and drives a car - TAKE ME WITH YOU!!! lol