March 17 - luck of the Irish?, Nope! I guess not for the non-Irish

I had the longest ice fishing trip this entire winter (6-7hrs) and the conditions were great and the weather was the same (getting serious and decided to go light, no lunch, a little water and now that the derby is over, no camera either so back to my cardboard box photos at home). But fishing was very slow (ice was very noisy in the morning as it was pretty decently cold one and so making some ice out there). Since the conditions were so good for walking and where I needed to get through first was still solid, I made the trek back out to a spot that was farther away hoping to do as well as before. Marked very few and they were not active. Gave up after about 3 hours of trying. Everything just seemed inactive. Moved back closer to where most fish. Still hard to find active fish...lots of smelts in some areas. Had a few slow, lazy rises (I wouldn't call them chases) to my baits. Had two swipes from these kinds of slow rises that moved my deadstick rod but no takers. Finally, after marking fish on bottom every 2-5 min. for about 45min, I was able to convince one to bite....up came a small WF...finally, number 3 for the winter. It gave a decent fight for it's small size and actually tangled up my second line well enough that I had to throw both rods and the mess aside and use the back-up. A few more marks after that and then it all dried up. If the swipes ended up in catches, then it would have looked like a decent day for fish caught but it was really slow and I drilled a bunch of holes and moved alot...lots of good walking and sun! A bit windier in the morning and glad I didn't go completely light and leave the flip-over at home...it helped reduce the amount of sun on me as well and at one time, it felt like I had a heater blasting away at the sun-side wall of the shelter.

Great day to be out - and a nice snack to bring home.

A whitefish. Very nice!

Fish is all cleaned and will be gone tomorrow
And the fish stomach was again empty.

Fish for dinner on Tuesday.

Gotta say you're a die hard John! Nice catch.We had a couple chasers ourselves but it wasn't enough for us to stay longer.Fish gods sent us to the Splake lake

For sure

I don't get to fish such long days so was happy to get one this winter. I don't think I have another one coming up before the ice season is done. But I still have a few of those typical 2 hr fishing excursions.
Those fish gods of yours must have given you the luck of the Irish. Good decision to go.

Right on John, your patience paid off! What did you land it on?

vibrato - my go to is usually 3/8 ounce. I can't remember colour but I am finding more and more that colour doesn't seem to matter as much as I have caught fish with all colours but I still go through changing up colours just in case..it's really hard to figure out if colour makes any real difference as there are so many variables and it's hard to eliminate my presentation differences or if it was the colour. Some days, nothing matters and it's just a matter of getting something down there. Other days, it takes forever to get a bite and then you don't know if it was just a strange fish that decided to bite or if the last change in tackle made the difference or if it was a subtle difference in presentation

Beauty white fish congrats, I'm still trying out the vibrato's with no luck so far just the Mepps Ice jig seems to work for me

If they work, then that's good enough. I tend to stick to things that work for me and whatever's the cheapest I can get away with. I don't know what a Mepps Ice jig is though. Is it one of those cyclops spoons type of deal?

Nice fish, John. Patience does pay off (otherwise, some of us may have given up fishing long ago LOL)

Patience, stubborness and/or just a great day to be outside on the ice...all combined with more marks near the end that kept me out there for probably another extra hour and that was when I got the fish (and WF to boot for me anyway), which made up for the very slow day.

If they work, then that's good enough. I tend to stick to things that work for me and whatever's the cheapest I can get away with. I don't know what a Mepps Ice jig is though. Is it one of those cyclops spoons type of deal?

Sorry ment to say Williams Ice Fishing Spoon