Mid season report

[spike9915]

Been doing quite a bit of ice fishing on the weekends, this year has been more difficult in landing walleye. Been moving around to a number of spots, with most outings producing one or two table-sized fish, (sometimes less). From my experience the sturgeon seem to be increasing in numbers, some traditional walleye/sauger spots have been inundated with sturgeon and ling. Two of the larger sturgeon have been mid 20 pound fish (released back as quickly as possible), ling at 5 and 5.5 pounds. I have since moved off of these spots after a couple of outings due to the number of out of season sturgeon present there. A few nice walleye have been landed with two just over the 7 pound mark(both released). One outing even produced a catfish at almost 40 feet of water on the Ottawa, caught on a water bug that surfaced in one the holes drilled in the ice. Here are a few pictures from this winters so far.

[riverdog]

Nice report liked the part were you moved off the spot were you were catching the sturgen, some folks would sit there all day!

[wolfe]

Good report, Spike.

Isn't that unusual to find a water bug this time of year? I can't imagine... I guess it picked the wrong hole to visit. Then to get a catfish on it? Pretty unusual all across the board. Unlucky bug. Unlucky catfish. Lucky you.

W.

[Eli]

awesome!! the water bug catfish thing made me chuckle.
out of curiousity, was it a giant water bug (toe pincher)? 'cause if so, you're darn brave to have grabbed it.

[spike9915]

I don't know exactly what type of bug it was, but it had stick like legs and stayed on my line for nearly half the day. Thought of trying it and didn't expect to catch anything on it, you just never know.

[wolfe]

Spike,

did it look anything like this?



W.

[spike9915]

Not quite Margie, I will try and find a picture of it.

Shane

[Yannick Loranger]

this was it

[SALMON]

looks like a water scorpian