Back to open water! First bass of 2014 with a surprise pig.

   Today my plan was to go out and test the boat after a motor repair but it simply didn't happen. I found myself caught up in the nice weather and doing yard work, but i did manage to sneak away and found a small opening of open water in a local pond here in the meriden area and decided to take some cast. Only had about a 30 yard section to fish so i didn't expect much for action. I threw a big gold blade bait and second cast caught my first bass of the year. A little fish but it felt great to set the hook again. After 2 more dinks around the same size i was about to leave and then bam set the hook and it felt like bottom until it started to swim. I honestly thought it was gonna be way bigger(its been a few months) but i was beyond pumped to lip this 4 lb 5 oz 20 inch chunk of a largemouth. What a great start to the year. Spring is here. Hope you all have a great season!

Patience was wearing thin, so was the ice in spots, but it paid off!

 My last 4 pike trips have ended with a few things in common..tons of walking in and out through deep snow, countless hours with no pike on the ice and everything possible way to lose a fish or not getting a single flag. To be honest I've questioned myself a few times for continuing to go.. although i feel like i am now a professional ice watcher.. which means something right? Sadly no. But the only way to break the bad luck is to keep going. Well today i went to a spot on the River that is again a long walk in but today added the uncertainty of knowing if the spot would have safe ice or ice at all? Only way to find out is to go... After my 3/4 mile walk down i found where i just stood last week was now open water. Was on the water for 6am and the tide was high so i tried anyways but i couldn't fish the depths that i really needed to hit. This is a main river spot with a current break so being alone it was creepy but that factor went up times ten when i put my right foot down near the shoreline and went right through. I went just past my knee and bashed my left knee on the ice. Pulled myself out / sat on the bank / took off my boot / hung my socks on a tree branch / rolled up the pants to let the sun hit them / wore a glove as a sock and starting to think... hmm what am i doing here, fishing the wrong spots, falling through the ice.. Not what i had planned for my day. Decided to pack up and make the long walk back to the car to try another area. 

This is where Google maps comes in handy. Not knowing where i wanted to go next i thought about some river spots i hit from my boat but not from shore that have similar structure and depths as the first spot i fished and by 11am i was on the ice again. To my surprised a few people were already there fishing and they couldn't have been nicer. Offered me some food off the grill before we even exchanged names. Was the right move.. before i had my fourth tip up in the water my first flag was up. Line was flying off the spool and i just held tight and fish on. After a decent fight i finally had another pike on the ice. I didn't measure this one because my sled was far away but id guess 31 inches give or take an inch. Came out of 2 feet of water on a dead bait. An hour later another flag! This time in 1.7 feet of water on a dead bait. I ran over and again the line was flying accept this time when i set the hook the fish had some better weight to her. The line even cut my finger. This was the best fight i had had through the ice yet and the fish kicked up all kinds of mud from the bottom to the point i couldn't see into the hole at all. After a few minutes i feel the fish get stuck to the bottom edge of the hole and thought oh no!!!! but she swam off and next thing i see is a big pike head sticking out of brown water and i reached into the gills and pulled out this 36 inch fish. Wasn't too fat but after the fishing ive been through i couldn't have been happier. Those were my only 2 flags of the day but 2 flags 2 fish. Ill take it. Ill be back out tomorrow hopefully. 

Ice bassin 2/8 with a PIG!

 Hit a local pond today with Josh and the walk through the foot of snow with a crunchy shell was probably the worst part of the day. Once finally at the pond we found about 7-8 inches of Ice. We each put out 2 tip ups and starting jigging away. First flag came about 5 minutes in and was my best fish of the day. About a 2.5 lb largie.  The flags were pretty spread out for the morning but the jigging for blue gills was amazing. At 1pm we decides to pick up and make a move.. Well I'm glad we did, action started quickly. 3 flags in the first 10 minutes.

Soon after, I look over and see Josh fighting a good fish on a small blade bait on a jigging rod and I could tell it was a bass not a gill. I started running over after he got his first glimpse through the hole and let out a wooooo! The fish kept head shaking in the hole as he tried to lip it and at one point i think we were both pretty certain that fish was gonna come loose. But it was meant to be today and this fish went 5 lbs on the dot on the digital scale. What a bass!  We left today pumped on the fishing. Ended up with 12 bass all keepers (10 on tip ups  2 jigging) and well over 50 Blue gills which were giving some great fights today! All released.  Great day on the water!  Congrats Josh!  That ones gonna be hard to beat on the jigging rod.

Pachaug Weekend... sometimes you have to admit defeat and move on.

 Spent all day saturday and sunday on pachaug targeting pike.. fishing 4 different spots on the lake during these 2 days.. I fished points, cove openings, channels and all of them had one thing that was consistent. NO FLAGSSS! I fished sun up too sun down both days by myself with my 6 tip ups out with big pondies 3 dead / 3 alive. Saturday morning i meet Rickerster and Teig from the site and they couldn't have been nicer. They even offered to drill me some other holes if i wanted to make a move which was cool. They got 1 bass and 1 pickerel but no one around us caught a pike. I ended up having to move my car around 2 pm so i picked up and moved to the other side of the lake for the remaining 3 hours of daylight.. Finished the day with not a single flag and i didn't mark a single fish jigging all day. I was frustrated but hearing about some of the great fish caught in other areas of the lake i decided to go sleep at my brothers house in Norwich and go out again today... 

Did some research on a depth chart last night and found the spot i wanted to fish... bad news was people were fishing it after i walked over a mile to get to it. I set up not far from there and after a few hours of no action those guys left and i went over and used there holes. I ended up meeting a Masshole who was out there pike fishing who was a really good pike fisherman. We talked about pike stories shared pictures and shot the shoot for a while. He was fishing far away from me and at about 3 pm he walked over again with a herring for me to try. Really nice dude. I put it out there immediately. The lack of action on big pike shiners i was willing to try anything else. With about 45 minutes left of daylight im sitting on my bucket wondering what was happening.. knowing i was in the worst two days of fishing ive ever had in my life. Again today no jigging to be had and as i'm second guessing every move i made this weekend and then ... the herring flag goes up. I ran over and the spool was flying.. Set the hook and fish on. 22 hours waiting for that one dam pike and of course it wasn't very big. Fish went 30 inches and had a solid gut on it. Got dark and i packed up. I walked off the ice with my head down completely bummed that i wasted an entire weekend with 1 fish to show for it. I guess that's pike fishing. Im glad other people had good luck this weekend. All i can say is im tired im disappointed and im honestly pretty pissed off at this whole weekend. This one is going to sting until i have a good day of fishing. 

This sums up my weekend too...

As i was getting the hook out of the pike a seagull flew in and grabbed the herring from the ice... The one bait that worked gone just like that. &^%$ this weekend. lol

Ice fishing Weekend 1/25 1/26

  I hit a CT River cove in search of pike at 6:30 am armed with 5 tip ups with big shiners and a jigging rod to hopefully catch some pondies(for bait)  perch and panfish to pass the time. Well the jigging was almost nonexistent.. Josh meet me there at 7 am and he only stayed a few hours. He did manage 2 perch, 2 blue gill and 2 calicos jigging before he called it quits.  Wasn't enough action to justify being cold.  I didn't blame him at all but i knew i was going to be there all day sun up till sun down going for that pike... A couple more people showed up and my friend Chad got a little pike almost asap then all went quiet for way too long. We had probably 6 flags in the next 4 hours that were all pick up and drops before we even got there. I ended up getting a flag around 3 pm and landed a largemouth which surprised everyone. Apparently not common at all in this shallow cove. Then it was just me and one kid out there from then till dark and right before i packed up i got a flag right next to my feet. Spool was spinning fast i grabbed it set the hook and fish on. Didn't feel big but i knew it was the pike i was waiting for. Wish it was a better one to justify staying all day but i was happy.. Ended the day with 1 perch 1 pickerel 1 bass and 1 pike.   Was a good day talking and laughing with other fisherman to pass the time between flags.

 This morning i woke up... looked at the forecast. Saw a high temp of 18 and high winds.. Decided not to fish and went out for a massive breakfast with the lady. Got home and thought.. i still have a dozen shiners i could drown and i ran out the door. I went to lake beseck to find that there is no parking and no one had drilled any holes and i didn't wanna be the first. So i drove farther north to private pond my friend lives on and the action started almost immediately. By the time i set up my second tip up my first flag was up. Nice little bass. I was laughing because i was set up with pike bait, pike hooks, 50 lb leaders.. Figured it wouldn't get touched at all but i was very wrong. I was honestly planning on pike fishing today and i didn't have any other leader material or smaller hooks with me. Guess they didn't mind! I put out just three tip ups and had one jigging rod set up dead sticking and the other jigging rod with a small blade bait on.  I honestly couldn't keep up with the action. At one time 2 flags went up and my dead stick rod had a fish on it. being solo this was pretty funny. I landed one bass, missed the other flag and got a blue gill on the rod. Wish it was on film. lol  The jigging action was great and by the time i left i had 9 bass ( 5 on tip ups and 4 jigging on the blade bait ) and 2 dozen hand sized bluegills.  I was thrilled with the fishing. The hot bait for the blue gills was a trout magnet with a spike and got a few on the blade as well.  Only fished for about 2.5 hours and i called it quits as my hands were just too cold.  Looking forward to getting out again.. i could get used to this whole ice fishing thing. 

By: Joe Jacobowitz

First ice report ever! 1/05

 Got out on the ice today for the first time in a few years! Been looking forward to getting out but i'm not one of those guys who walks on 3 inches of ice. Give me 5 or 6 and i wont be nervous the whole time.. Met up with Josh Rayner around 8 am this morning to find the ice was about 6 or 7 inches plus..  Armed with jigging rods only!  I caught my first fish of 2014 in roughly 1 minute. First drop, first hole.  Little perch but i was pumped. Josh caught the next 4 perch then our friend Paul came up and schooled us!

We had flurries of action over the next few hours with Paul having the hot hand as soon as he arrived.  Showing us newbs how to jig! Appreciate the tips Paul.  We had a lot of fun just shooting the shit and jigging away. We ended up catching over 50 perch 1 pike and 1 pumpkinseed. All my perch and my pike came on the dynamic lures hd ice which I was pumped on being my first time trying there ice lure.  Josh got his on a small blade bait and some straight tail power minnows and Paul got all his on small jigs tipped with maggots. We fished through some pretty good freezing rain but all and all it was a comfortable day to be on the water. 

small but great fight on a jigging rod!

Josh and I hit two more bodies of water on our way home.. Found safe ice but zero action and called it a day. Tough fishing some spots without electronics. Great start to the 2014 season and looking forward to getting up there again. Please dont ask where we were fishing because i will not answer. Some these places are private and i cant risk telling others. I know that stinks but i gave lures we used and some other details which i hope can be helpful for you!   

- Joe Jacobowitz