Slow day on Cranberry Pond

Cranberry Pond looking north over Lake Ontario

Yesterday morning a group of 8 fathers/sons and friends headed out for our first ice fishing outing of the year.  I felt that Irondequiot Bay was our best opportunity to catch big perch, but reports on IceShanty were that the ice was still questionable.  We stopped at Mitchells Bait & Tackle and discussed strategy.  We ended up going to Cranberry Pond with a bucket full of 6 different types of minnows.

Dave cleaning ice hole....ice was 6-8 inches

There is a parking lot for fisherman on the northwest corner of the "pond".  This pond is fed by Lake Ontario and supposedly holds a lot of perch.  We spent several hours with tip-ups and poles with live minnows, but we only caught one 4 inch perch.  It was the worst day of ice fishing ever!  There was probably 20 mph winds on the lake.  Fortunately we stopped at a local diner and had a great hot meal after wards, so the boys were not too disappointed.  I think the local definition of big perch on Cranberry pond is around 8 inches, versus my definition of big perch which is 16-20 inches.

Little Shu and Big Shu packing up our ice sled