Third time in November

Cold...warm...cold...warm...cold! Mother Nature just couldn't make up her mind in November, and on the last day of November, the wind chill was below zero, go figure. There is really only one thing to do when the weather is like that, go ice fishing. Actually I wasn't too sure any fishing was going to take place today after the warming weather we had earlier in the week and temperatures near 50 yesterday. However, there is only one way to know exactly how thick the ice is...go out and check it. None of the local, larger lakes are even close to being ready for ice fishing, so I obtained permission to look over two different farm ponds south of town.

I wasn't expecting much, but found good ice at both ponds. The ice is still very inconsistent, we saw 2-inches of ice all the way up to almost 6-inches of ice. Crappies, bass and mostly bluegills were found today. The bluegills were actively roaming the deeper basin of the second pond and feeding heavily. The Vexilar FLX-28's were lit up most of the time with schools of bluegills roaming through the area. Most fish were suspended about 3-4 feet of the bottom, so picking them off with the Vexilar made things pretty easy today. The gills did prefer a white colored jig, and any color plastic or waxworm would work. The key on this pond today was getting into the deepest water where the gills were feeding.

Hopefully the cold weather forecast for the week is correct and some larger lakes will ice up this week, if not some more ponds might be the place once again next weekend.