jig fishing for smelt

Hi Folks, Guided on the ice yesterday afternoon for brown trout, smelt, and yellow perch.  Nice afternoon with no wind, sunny skies, and air temperatures in the teens.  11" of black ice with a foot of snow on top.  there is some water between the snow and ice and makes for sloppy walking.  Should really harden up after this weekend with the in coming cold weather.  Day time highs will not be getting much above zero.  With the new bait laws a lot of the desirable bait for trout fishing in the winter is no longer available.  So we go old school and catch our own bait on the lake we are fishing.  We found a huge school of smelt suspended over 32' of water at 20'.  We must landed at least 50 smelt and used a few for our tip-ups.  Caught some decent yellow perch just under the ice.  Matter of fact the perch were trying to eat some the smelt on the tip ups and we had to remove them by jigging.  No trout yesterday afternoon but we did have two fish who took a lot of line off the spool but then dropped our baits.  Who knows.  Will be guiding over the weekend and I am glad that I have a heated shanty.  Remember to obey the bait laws and keep VHS at home.  Have Fun, Willy