Late Ice=Good Ice

First let me say.......I gave birth yesterday (Sunday 2/27/11). Oh yeah, I passed that kidney stone NATURALLY. It's out. Thank you God!!!!

Now, for the big reason of this post. Yesterday's ice fishing trip. Notice I haven't really been bragging/complaining about this year's ice fishing? That's because it's been pretty rough going. Granted, I caught fish every time I went out, but nothing to really brag about......until yesterday. :)

My friend Barry showed up at the house aroun 11:30, and we had to wait a bit because I felt that stone working its way up. It finally made an appearance, so off we went. The place we fished doesn't have a name. It's behind a church. Far away. That's all I know. Anyway, we got there around 1 o'clock and Barry had 8 holes punched in the ice quick. We set up our tip-ups and got our jigging gear ready. Barry then punched a million more holes and I picked one to start. Within an hour, I had over 30 decent bluegills on the ice.
A flag pops, and Barry pulls out a huge pickeral.
We continue jigging, 70-80 more blueg's, and another flag. I pulled a small largemouth out.
70-80 more blueg's, another flag, Barry lands a bigger pickeral.
70-80 more blueg's (yes...we were catching hundreds of bluegills and sunnys with a crappie tossed in there), another flag...another small largemouth for me.
We took a break from jigging, ate our hoagie, then took a little walk away from the holes to another spot on the pond. When we were sitting over there, I noticed one of our tip-ups popped so I started a slow walk over. Then I saw the WHOLE TIP UP start violently shaking. Now I'm RUNNING over. Barry's not far behind me as I'm yelling "THIS IS A BIG FISH BARR.....IT'S BIG!!" His response, "I don't have a gaff". Oh great. I saw the head under the ice and almost passed another kidney stone. I had to choose fast, stick my whole arm down the hole and risk getting my fingers bitten off, or just pull this fish up quickly and pray the line doesn't break. My fingers are too precious to me so I yanked and prayed. And landed the biggest pickeral of my life.
All-in-all, we had a wonderful day weather-wise, LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of fish, I'm talking hundreds of panfish, and 3 nice pickeral.
I'm hoping the weather doesn't break up the ice this week so we can go back there this Saturday.
Here are some pictures from yesterday.



DELICIOUS!!








And for those who are constantly asking me for updated Simon pictures, here are a couple from dinner Saturday night over at Aunt Nicole's house.




I'm VERY grateful for yesterday. The stone leaving my body, all those fish, and a great kid.

Thanks for reading.

Oh, btw, I read "The Magic" from Andrew Hannon's THIRTEEN Volume One. If you want to know about it, and what happened, drop me an email, or leave me a comment. tom@magic93fm.com