The Icefish Cometh

I was finally able to get out on some of our local, mid-Michigan lakes this past weekend.  On Saturday, I went to Lake Lansing and Park Lake with no results.  Undeterred, on Monday, I returned to Park Lake and found myself site fishing for some nice pan fish.  Monday had a tough start on the ice, without bites in my first hour of fishing.  When I moved to shallower water, however, I quickly found myself over fish.

I'd estimate we were fishing in about five feet of water, with green weeds covering the bottom.  I noticed that every few minutes, a different school of blue gill would come in, and every school would have two or three good blue gill or crappie.  For bait, I was using gold and silver tungsten jigs, tipped with one or two lively red maggots.  These fish were very finicky, even the little ones.  The fish were only responding to dead-sticking and very subtle quivers.  Even though most of the fish I saw today were small, I was still able to catch some nice blue gill, crappie and perch.

Small baits were key today, and I wonder if the red maggots might have been working better than the wax worms I used on Saturday.  Out of all the people out on the ice, I was having more success than anyone else today, and I have to say I was the only person using quality bait supplied by my friends at Grand River Bait and Tackle!

A perch for perch

Around DeWitt, there's no safe ice in the first days of 2015, so I headed north in early January to Cadillac, Michigan for an afternoon of ice fishing.  When we arrived in Cadillac, we saw a number of ice shanties out on Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell.   Stopping at the Carl T. Johnson Hunt and Fish Center at Mitchell State Park, I heard that there's great fishing on both lakes.  I didn't bring my ice shanty along, but decided to do some pan fishing.  On Lake Cadillac, the ice was about four or five inches thick, but it was very clear and I could actually see my jig through it.  I was using a custom Custom Jigs and Spins Chekai jig with a fire tiger design, which I tipped with a wax worm.  In short order, I was catching perch.  They were mostly pretty small, but, once I started, I was catching perch every few minutes.

The perch might not have been giants, but they put up great fights on my ultra-light gear.  I was disappointed that I did not have any pike ice fishing gear with me, because a DNR employee I talked to said the action for my favorite fish on Lakes Cadillac and Mitchell has been great.

If you are up in Cadillac, I recommend you stop at the Johnson Hunt and Fish Center.  The people there were very helpful and have good local knowledge.  They also had some great information and displays about pike!