The Big Ice Breaker

I was back on the water again today with Tim and oh, how he got em! We began our day around 11:00 AM and had to break the ice at the boat ramp in order to go fishing. The air had warmed to the freezing mark when we began, but the winds were still blowing strong. Today however, they were coming in from the NE again, contrary to the weather report and we had very similar conditions to yesterday. The water had lost another degree or so and was down to 46 at the best of times causing the fish to become really lethargic. We had lots of them just picking up the jigs and not getting hooked when we set into them. One of the areas fortunately produced only big fish averaging 4 pounds or more. There were also several over 5 pounds and a couple in the high fives. Tim had a blast hooking, losing and hooking the same fish again on several of his casts. Some of these fish were just so aggressive when the moon was rising that it was like you couldn’t do anything wrong. If you missed a fish, just stop the retrieve and wait a couple of seconds until he had it again. We stuck it out right till the last few minutes before the sun went down and then headed back to the ramp to take out. I was amazed to see my Hamby Keel Protector ripped to shreds when I pulled the boat out of the water. It must have torn from breaking the ice on the way out, but they are made of Kevlar and shouldn’t tear like that, so I thought! I have another friend that breaks ice twice that thick every fall for the past 3 years and doesn’t have a scratch to show! Oh well, the perfect end to an almost perfect day!!