getting my perch on

Hi Folks, Been guiding the hard water the last few days.  Lots of ice out there now with over 18" where we fished yesterday afternoon.  Decent snow pack on the ice and snow shoes are not a bad bet.  Pretty mild on the ice the last few days but a steady west wind makes thing a bit more chilly.  Not much luck catching game fish as we have been pursuing northern pike on one lake and trout on another.  However, the pan fish have been fairly cooperative.  Chumming chopped on live bait seems to be very effective in keeping schools of perch and smelt in close proximity to our holes.  I have noticed with the yellow perch that small minnows are producing bigger fish and maggots mainly get interest from the little dinky perch.  Also, brightly colored lures and glow in the dark lures have been the ticket.  Hali jigs in fire tiger, chartreuse, and orange have all been effective.  For the smelt anything in silver/ gold/bronze complimented with green or blue have been consistent.  Tip up fishing for me has been slow, but then again ice fishing is all about patience.  We did get broken off yesterday jig fishing by a pike.  Will be guiding this weekend and not sure what direction I will be heading.  Stay and warm and have, Willy

jig fishing for pike

Light line pike fishing

Hi Folks, Guided on the hard water yesterday for northern pike and yellow perch.  A good solid 14" of ice and we drove my truck on the ice.  Nice winter day with air temperatures hovering just above zero and a slight wind from the south.  We had my heated portable shanty yesterday and it was pretty comfortable inside.   We fished on dead weed beds in 10' to 12' of water. We set 15 tip-ups with large dead suckers and smelt.  We did not have one flag.  The folks fishing next to us did catch two small pike on tip-ups and they were using live bait.  All of our action came with the jig sticks.  We chummed our holes with fat head minnows and chunks of yellow perch.  It brought in the pike.  We missed a couple of fish, lost a good pike at the hole, and landed a solid 24" northern on 2lb test.  We were using light jig sticks spooled with light line and fire tiger Hali jigs.  Really exciting.  Another group of folks fishing did catch a large smallmouth bass.  Lots of action yesterday jigging and especially with little perch.  We caught a few decent perch but to avoid the small ones we had to resort to tipping our jigs with minnows and not maggots.  Fun morning.  Remember to not move water around and spread non-native species.  Have Fun, Willy