We headed out of Port Clinton again towards our usual fishing grounds and decided to start around G can, I have been fishing here the last 4 days. finally the weather is starting to stabilize with this warm up! Today was different though as my first hole we drilled my active target lit up with a lot of marks up off the bottom. In a 100' circumference I was marking 8-15 fish at most times....this is exactly what we have been waiting for. I knew with this weather system these fish were going to start eating and it just confirmed my suspicions.
We deployed our two shanties in quick order and got to work. I chose to run a blue chrome jigging rap on one rod and a chartreuse Swedish Pimple on the other rod. I really like running this combo through the ice as one is a bit more aggressive and the other is more of a finesse style bait, I can tell based on the fish's body language if he prefers one or the other. I also prefer running two rods as in my experience a lot of the time these fish run in small "hunt groups" as I like to call them. Usually 2-4 fish will roam on these flats looking for food, when one decides to eat the others will follow in short order and usually they will become competitive with each other.
It didn't take but a few minutes before my active target lit up with a really nice mark, she was very aggressive darting in from almost 10' away when she saw my jigging rap, she smoked it on the first hop. That ended up being our first one of the morning and was a nice 28.5" fish. What a way to start the day! While I was getting her off the hook I could hear Kris shuffling around in the shanty next me as he was bringing one top side. I knew it was about to be a very good morning. In the next 3 hours we never ran out of markets and every 5- 10 minutes we would have a small group of fish come on one of the screens. Most were very aggressive, preferring the jigging raps, so much so we were not even having to tip them with minnows. Most of the fish ranged from 20-26" that we were catching. Kris and I had our limits in the first hour and were just fun fishing, we both have been fishing this lake long enough on the ice to know days like this are rare!
One of the things that i noticed today (this is our first season running the active targets for ice fishing, we have not had good ice the last couple season so we have only been using them off of our boats to target fish)using these active targets was just how far these fish were able to see our lures and how much they were able to be "called in". I found that I prefer leaving mine in forward view as opposed to down mode that many use when ice fishing. I found by doing so it allows me to see the amount of fish around the area I am fishing as well as travel paths the fish are on. I noticed most of the fish were coming from the east heading south west today. Well over 90% of the fish I marked were on this travel line. That being said, I could see them coming well in advance, and because I was in forward view I found myself keeping them in my scope as the fish were swimming by, even if they were to my side. I then would start lifting my bait up 3-4' and letting it slam repeatedly on the bottom. I could see slight clouds of sediment being stirred up by doing this. These fish would key in on this from quite aways away and come charging in to investigate. This may help you guys in your future trips.
This week we are warming up, I think the fishing will only continue to improve with these temperatures. With the amount of ice we have I am not concerned that it may soften at all as long as we do not stay this elevated for too long. Based on the winds I will start fishing again thursday.
Captain Matt
