Mid-winter panning for "gold"

I have fully come to appreciate the fact that there are 3 kinds of perch....dink perch which are 8 inches or less....big perch which are 8-14 inches....than there are JACK PERCH which are 14-20 inches.  For the past three years I have been listening to those experienced with consistently catching the jack perch on Seneca Lake.  One of their  "secret weapons" is called the Oak Leaf Grub.  

Oak Leaf Grub

 This is a bait that is difficult to find and is the subject of much fishing folklore.  You can only find these grubs during the winter months as they become Crane Flys.


Today, with the warm weather, Jake, John, Dave, and I took John's Bad Boy and headed out to the woods to see if we could find these elusive critters.  We got a mile into the woods and the Bad Boy got stuck a few times too many.  The last time it got so hung up in the deep snow that we decided to leave it until tomorrow as there is supposed to be a big meltdown.  From there we hiked another mile, Jake and Dave in their waders, to our destination.   To our surprise the stream was frozen.  We thought the recent warm-up would have had it open.  Jake and Dave eventually punched a large enough hole through the stream that we were able to do our work.








A lot of work, but a lot of fun too.

Ice Castle Weekend in Mayville: Day 2

On Monday Jake, Miika, Jessica and I headed out to Dewittville Bay, or what our good friend Jim would refer to as "Livak's pond".  There was about 10" of fresh snow on the ice so the walking was not near as treacherous as the day before. 


We walked almost a mile out where we set up base camp in about 14 feet of water.  The ice was about 4 inches thinker than it was in Mayville the day before.  The ice was a good 14 inches thick here.

On the ice we caught much bigger perch than in Mayville, but not very many.  About 12 is how many we caught.

Ice Castle weekend in Mayville: Sunday fishing

On Sunday a whole crew of us parked at the railroad depot in Mayville, New York and headed out about 1/2 mile directly out on Chautauqua Lake in front of the Ice Castle.  The lake was sheer ice with no snow on it so it was treacherous walking.

The ice was about 8 inches thick and Jimmy had his workout for the week as he drilled the bulk of the holes.  Uncle Cam and I spent the bulk of our time putting minnows on hooks and taking fish off youngsters poles.  Our core crew was Keith, Mark, Mathew, Jimmy, Miika, and Uncle Cam....on and off throughout the morning we were joined by many family members and friends. 


Caught a lot of perch, the size of which are fondly referred to as "dinks" by the locals.  We enjoyed homemade Manhattan chowder, hot cocoa on the ice, and Caged Alpha Monkey Ale.

Seneca Lake again produces!!

Seneca Lake continues to be the fisherman's paradise.  I love this lake.  The perch on this lake defy all perceptions of what big perch are.  Dave and I took 1/2 day of vacation to take advantage of 45 degree weather and light winds to fish for a few hours.  Once again the perch were in the honey hole!!!

Strike out on Irondequiot Bay

Shuman cooking clam chowder

Well Shu and I went out to Irondequiot Bay Saturday and joined the rest of the 300+ crazies on the ice.  There were Clams as far as the eye could see.  We had a feast on the ice with our Swan's brauts and hots.....clam chowder....yum!!!  Which was good because the fishing was awful.  Shu caught the only perch.  We saw a lot of alewives as they swam around our ice holes.  Ice Shanty had reported the fishing was still slow there, but we had a blast anyhow.  We stayed until the waning hours of daylight and was the second to last clam to leave the ice.  Earlier in the day there were a group of six clams and two deep fryers....they were all frustrated because they were thinking they were going to deep fry the perch on the lake, but they did not catch one perch all day!.

The ice was a good 8 inches thick and we were fishing in 30 feet of water.  I brought my propane heater in the clam and several times did we get the temperature above 100 degrees in the clam.