Rockport 2-22-22...Cold and 'Breezy'

[Jmorfish]

Foot-soldiered it down the slope to the ice at R.P. this morning, line in water by 0745...ice solid, edges solid today...it's a little eerie being the first one on the reservoir, but ok....cold to start, but no wind yet, and dropping the finder down the hole revealed activity on the bottom..perch were here...a few good ones on ice just before DuBob and Allen came out on their machines..my activity slowed just long enough to get my tent set up, and was able to greet Bob and Allen while getting inside organized...We had pretty good activity right away again, which lasted 'til about 0900, but then the wind and cold started...Time to get the heater going, as the bite pretty much stopped..Big schools went away, little schools didn't stick around, and mostly just sniffed our presentations... lots of 'thumb twiddling' for a couple hours, and Bob and Allen packed up and headed back to civilization...I know they each got a few nice ones...I wanted to stay a little longer, as my heater was doing a fair job of fighting back the frigid temps, and this is where I needed to be...now about 1230? a couple more good ones up on the ice...I'd made a homemade 'wonderbread' patterned jig, and now this worked great with an eyeball.. The big school stayed around for almost 45 minutes longer, 'til I had to leave at 1:30, providing an unusually good bite that whole period...dead stick still mostly not working, but 'teasing' them up did at this time...overall, 1 caught on small pc of nite crawler, 2 on wax worm, 0 on red spikes, several on cut mealworm, and the rest on donated eyeball...released 4 or 5, those kept were 9 to 10"..no monsters...just nice perch...

[Cowboypirate]

Great report. This little cold spell will definitely help extend the hard deck run. Do you ever see crawler pieces out fish other baits on the ice? I never take crawlers on the ice with me and i am wondering why I dont since its all i tip with when ice off starts.

[wiperhunter2]

Thanks for the report Joe, the average perch a RP this Winter have been pretty decent and since Echo is pretty much shut down, for most of the Winter, I'm glad it has been fishing so well. Was it snowing any while you were there? Are your wonder bread pattern jig glow? When you say you were teasing them up, I know in the past you have said you slowly raise the jig to see if they follow but do you also do any light jigging or shaking your rod tip to tease them?

[2knots]

Good meeting you Joe. Snowy highways made our arrival a bit later then it normally would of been, it was snowing when I arrived but quickly stopped and clear skies to the east which changed as the wind picked up. Bob had no issue getting on with the “dog” but I broke through with the ATV in 2 spots before we found a place that would support it. Joe was getting fish as we set up our tents and marked a lot of fish once I started fishing but I was apparent on the lock jaw side of the school, ended up with 2 landed, missed some bites and lost 1, guess we left a bit early but still a fun day.

[wiperhunter2]

Good meeting you Joe. Snowy highways made our arrival a bit later then it normally would of been, it was snowing when I arrived but quickly stopped and clear skies to the east which changed as the wind picked up. Bob had no issue getting on with the “dog” but I broke through with the ATV in 2 spots before we found a place that would support it. Joe was getting fish as we set up our tents and marked a lot of fish once I started fishing but I was apparent on the lock jaw side of the school, ended up with 2 landed, missed some bites and lost 1, guess we left a bit early but still a fun day.

Thanks for the info Alan, we are planning on getting out there tomorrow, hopefully these colder temps today firm up the edges. Did you get on the ice to the east of the boat docks?

[Jmorfish]

Good meeting 2Knots out on the ice..I wish we could have spent a little time out of our shelters to chat a bit more, but the nasty weather kept us in too much...Several years ago Wiperhunter's friend, Ira, was catching some there using a little pc of crawler, and I have tried that on occasion since, but never done really good..last week out there I talked to a guy that said some of his perch were spitting up little red worms, so that's why I tried a red-tailed jig with red spikes (0) and then a small jig with small pc of worm (1)........I just painted some colored dots on a small solid white glow jig, my own version of a 'wonderbread' jig...worked for me......
As before, these fish currently are rarely hitting a dead stick for me, even when the 'big school' is down there.. 'teasing' one or two up out of the crowd would be my best chance to get a hit, going up slowly, stop, maybe a tiny jig or 2, then up slowly again, stop, often needing to get to the top of the school before getting hit...if they are in a biting mood, you'll 'see' 2 or 3 swimming up to greet your presentation as you are initially lowering it to them...Again, you need a fish finder for this to work, unless you know you're fish school is in session...Guluk...

[wiperhunter2]

Good meeting 2Knots out on the ice..I wish we could have spent a little time out of our shelters to chat a bit more, but the nasty weather kept us in too much...Several years ago Wiperhunter's friend, Ira, was catching some there using a little pc of crawler, and I have tried that on occasion since, but never done really good..last week out there I talked to a guy that said some of his perch were spitting up little red worms, so that's why I tried a red-tailed jig with red spikes (0) and then a small jig with small pc of worm (1)........I just painted some colored dots on a small solid white glow jig, my own version of a 'wonderbread' jig...worked for me......
As before, these fish currently are rarely hitting a dead stick for me, even when the 'big school' is down there.. 'teasing' one or two up out of the crowd would be my best chance to get a hit, going up slowly, stop, maybe a tiny jig or 2, then up slowly again, stop, often needing to get to the top of the school before getting hit...if they are in a biting mood, you'll 'see' 2 or 3 swimming up to greet your presentation as you are initially lowering it to them...Again, you need a fish finder for this to work, unless you know you're fish school is in session...Guluk...

Thanks for the reply Joe, I'll have to give that a try. I have tried doing that before but never had any success but maybe I did not wait long enough to see if I would get a bite and I never tried jigging, so maybe that will help.

[2knots]

Good meeting you Joe. Snowy highways made our arrival a bit later then it normally would of been, it was snowing when I arrived but quickly stopped and clear skies to the east which changed as the wind picked up. Bob had no issue getting on with the “dog” but I broke through with the ATV in 2 spots before we found a place that would support it. Joe was getting fish as we set up our tents and marked a lot of fish once I started fishing but I was apparently on the lock jaw side of the school, ended up with 2 landed, missed some bites and lost 1, guess we left a bit early but still a fun day.

Thanks for the info Alan, we are planning on getting out there tomorrow, hopefully these colder temps today firm up the edges. Did you get on the ice to the east of the boat docks?

No not that far, I was east of the ramp where I got on almost in front of the docks

[wiperhunter2]

Good meeting you Joe. Snowy highways made our arrival a bit later then it normally would of been, it was snowing when I arrived but quickly stopped and clear skies to the east which changed as the wind picked up. Bob had no issue getting on with the “dog” but I broke through with the ATV in 2 spots before we found a place that would support it. Joe was getting fish as we set up our tents and marked a lot of fish once I started fishing but I was apparently on the lock jaw side of the school, ended up with 2 landed, missed some bites and lost 1, guess we left a bit early but still a fun day.

Thanks for the info Alan, we are planning on getting out there tomorrow, hopefully these colder temps today firm up the edges. Did you get on the ice to the east of the boat docks?

No not that far, I was east of the ramp where I got on almost in front of the docks

Thanks, that sounds like the spot we got on last week, it was a little soft getting off but we had no issues.

[wiperhunter2]

No problem with the edges when we got there with -4 degrees temps. With the wind still blowing, I was sure glad I had my hut. JJannie said it warmed up to 19 degrees by the time they left around noon. We did better than last week but noting great, average perch was 9 to 10". Saw Pikeman there and he did the best of all of us, I think he said he was using worms. Good seeing you again Glenn.

[jjannie]

when we arrived before sunup our truck was reading a cold -9 degrees. We all thought we were crazy to out in it and we likely were. Once the sun came out it still wasn't very warm, but it felt warmer.... once on the ice it was still 15in thick if edges hold up decently through this warmup, we should still have a couple weeks at least we hope.