farmpond1

You just might get it. I've been worried we wouldn't get cold temperatures long enough to do any ice fishing. Boy have we got cold temperatures!!!! You can blame your high utility bill on me this month. I went out to a local pond for about 4 hours last Sunday. My new Ice 35 flasher really helped. I credit the flasher, a willinness to move from hole to hole and the use of a spring bobber for most of my success (the bluegill were all biting really light). Caught around 15 bluegill and a nice 2.5 bass on jigs tipped with waxworms and a swedish pimple also jigged with waxworms.

The real problem with being in debt up to one's eyeballs is, when you go do, you drag others down with you. And not just reckless creditors and lenders. I.e., the current economic crisis. p.s., this rant is not directed at you Tokyo.

It's been a long time now. Perhaps it was a rubber minnow my great uncle gave me. Or it was some oversized white beetlespin that I never used. The list remained small and stagnant until high school. Then it grew with the addition of smaller beetlespins and mepps spinners. Most of the hooks eventually rusted on the Mepps-or I lost them.

Nice shootin' tex!

Pretty cool of them...or they are trying to avoid a class action suit. Either way, if there are problems with the tranny, they did the right thing. For that, I applaud them.

Probably a really good fisherman/woman could spot my weaknesses better than me. If I knew what or how to do things differently, I would. Reading electronics would probably stand out, however. I still stink at flipping/pitching and skipping-which makes things bad as I like to fish docks and under tree limbs, etc.

Swilly, Well, with this cold snap, the ice should be thick enough on the small ponds. Was also wondering how you did? I went out yesterday. In some places, it was 5 inches and in others only 2 or 3. Me thinks there must've been water flowing in from a tile in the thin spots.

Been there. Done that. Only the birds nest wasn't quite so awful and I was able to reel the line in over the backlash.

I recently bought a flasher unit and a new ice rod/reel combo (the bait monkey hasn't neglected ice fishing junkies). These new aquisitions are making the waiting game even more excruciating. It's awfully tempting to venture out.

No but I've been thinking about getting one. I think it might be ideal for the smallmouth rivers in my general area. Can you paddle upstream with a Kayak?

17.5 Jonboat with 25 horse Evinrude. Purrs like a kitten. It stays in the garage while my pickup sits in the driveway.

It seems odd to me that everyone (who was alive then) seems to remember the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster but there's been no mention of the Columbia burning up on reentry (Feb 2003). I guess 911 and the subsequent wars were weighing us all down and perhaps we couldn't cope with one more thing.

Your parents sound like great folks. How many siblings did/do you have?

My brother and I each got our own SST cars (the ones with the wheel in the center that you got spinning with a plastic strip). His SST was lighter and faster but mine was a cool purple chrome color and much heavier. Mine always "won" if we raced them toward each other in our basement.

Safety has always been of paramount importance to me. And if I don't feel safe, I don't enjoy myself. Clear, really black ice may be the strongest but I'll be darned if it doesn't still give me the eebie jeebies. Dying in my sleep is my goal (like I have any real choice in the matter).

Supposing your argument was valid, you're saying fraud is okay?

Gang, Lately Central Illinois has experienced about a month of freeze/thaw temperatures. It's not yet to the point where the ice has gone away but it's thinner and I wouldn't even dare try to walk on it. But in the future I might try to venture out. My question is this: Does ice form "layers?" If so, is this ice weaker than ice from a climate where it remains cold continuously. Or to put it another way, is 5 inches of freeze/partial thaw/freeze/partial thaw/freeze ice weaker than 5 inches of continuous freeze ice? My hunch is yes, but I really don't know.

Hey, As bwell mentioned, we plan to head up North to try our hand at some ice fishing. I just bought a flasher and want to give it a whirl too. Do you have particular lakes in mind? I was looking at Google Earth and found a handful of Southern Wisconsin lakes perhaps worth trying (Whitewater, Madison, Crystal, etc). Do you venture into Wisconsin or confine your ice fishing to Illinois? farmpond1

I tend to agree. Giving him a kit would give him something to do during these looooooong winter months . A gift card is good but some people construe a gift card as "not putting much thought into the gift." It just depends, I guess, on where your b-friend stands and how picky he is.

Agreed, charting a small pond is really too much work if you insist upon breaking it down into contour intervals and all that. Just general depths are sufficient. If you don't have a boat (or can't use one), walking out on the ice, drilling holes, and marking depths seems to be a good way to go.

If I had to generalize, I'd say in clear, shallow water where the fish are heavily pressured I'd say yes, it can scare them. But otherwise, no, not usually. In fact, I'd say that a fighting fish can trigger a feeding "frenzy." Many of us have observed this phenomen where you haven't gotten a bite for many minutes (or even hours) and then suddenly had the fish turn on. I won't irrevocably state that it's always because we got the first fish to bite but I'd wager to say it is true part of the time.

Bassmajor's question may seem a little naive to some but I guess that makes me naive too. I've been contemplating charting a smallish pond with my flasher unit and GPS too. It is true that most acreage in a smaller pond can potentially hold fish but not so much in the extreme seasons of winter and summer. And if the lake is too wide to cast across (or a portion of the lake is inaccessible from shore) I can see where charting it can be helpful. JMHO.

Gang, Thanks for all your input. I broke down and got a Humminbird Ice 35. It was a toss up between that unit and a Vexilar FL 8SE. They were exactly the same price and the only reason I bought the Humminbird is that the FL 8SE (or, more accurately, the earlier version of the FL 8) has been out for years and some of it's electronics may be "antiquated." I don't know if my logic would hold up under scrutiny but that's how I decided. And the screen for the Humminbird seemed brighter. But Vexilar has a great reputation so I don't know if I made the best choice. Anyway, it's time to where I get out and practice with it. Kinda tough because the ice makes it impossible to take my boat out on the lake but too thin to walk on it. Guess I'll find a floating dock and drill some thin holes on the edge. Thanks again for all your input. Good luck with your ice fishing!

Thanks for the advice. It is helpful. I went to the Vexilar website and did some studying up. Something confuses me a bit, though. The website says that a large fish on the outside edge of a sonars "cone" may actually be depicted as red while a smaller fish which is actually closer to the center of the "cone" may only show as orange or even green. This doesn't make sense. Why doesn't the small fish show as red small band of light and the outside larger fish show as green, larger band of light. Can't a fish finder figure this out? It seems easy enough. Or am I missing something?

So, with the vexilar, does it turn from green to orange to red as the object gets closer to the center of the "cone"? That sounds awesome! I've been doing some basic research and was having a little difficulty comprehending how to read a "round" flasher unit. Does it become second nature after awhile? There is at least one brand, Showdown, that has a vertical display to represent the water column. But it appears to not be in color. Color that changes (as you've described) sounds really useful (and entertaining). How do you tell if your waxworm is there? Is the line thicker? Since everything is represented by lines, it takes some getting used to, huh? Illinois has a rather small window of opportunity for safe ice fishing. That's one reason I was thinking of going "cheap." But maybe it's worth it. I'm thinking of skipping some ski trips this year and driving North for ice fishing instead. I think I have a buddy who might join me. Thanks for your advice.