kanasbassfisher08 (Chris) and I went and hit a pond this morning despite a cold morning and a pretty heavy cold rain last night. I'd never fished the pond but he had done very well out there before but we both agreed we'd be surprised if we caught anything. First couple spots produced nothing but then I caught a fat 14 incher, first fish of the year! Next cast produced another, and another the next cast. In the next hour and a half we would land almost 60 bass and 1 crappie! All but 3 of them were on jerkbaits that we let sit for 5-10 seconds between twitches in the 37 degree water. I'm going to try to keep track of my fish count for the year this year, I've never done it before and I'm curious to know how many I actually catch a year. So as of right now my 2012 bass catch total is 31, not a bad start

WOW - 31 is a GREAT start! I only had 25 for the whole month of December!!

Like I've been jazzed about for the last 3 weeks....we have SOFT water!

WOW - 31 is a GREAT start! I only had 25 for the whole month of December!!

Like I've been jazzed about for the last 3 weeks....we have SOFT water!

Yep, I can't ever remember a time we had no ice on any ponds by this far into the winter. I can remember some times they froze, then thawed again for a few weeks before freezing again, but never just stayed open like this year, I'm loving it!