I've been eagerly awaiting this year's ice season. A small warm spell in November set back the season but it is finally underway. Decided to hit my local Rainbow Trout lake for this year's first ice fishing expedition.

Ice was 4-5" on the south end of the lake but still still a little sketchy out towards the middle of the lake. I set up one dead stick rod while I use a small jigging shad. The dead stick caught the first fish and to my surprise it was a beautiful Brown Trout. However, the jigging shad quickly took the lead catching 4 very chunky Rainbows before 10 AM. Afterwards the bite died off but with some work and downsizing to small tungsten jigs with plastics I was able to convert a couple more soft biters and pull them thru the ice.

Most fish in the morning were caught in 10-20' of water at 5-10' down whereas they seemed to move a little deeper in the middle of the day.

If you are new to ice fishing I put together a video covering a lot of the basic safety information as well as providing plenty of on camera fishing action. Enjoy!

---