Fishing Report

Hello all. It’s January in Wisconsin, so that can only mean one thing: Ice Fishing. Well, that’s completely untrue. There are plenty of fun things to do in Wisconsin in the Winter, like skiing and sledding and ice skating. Allegedly, snowmobiling is fun, but I’ll pass. Sorry to all my snowmobiling readers (Gwen, Sarah P.).

Back to ice fishing. Really, is there anything better than getting bundled up, sitting on a pickle pail, and trying to catch bluegills with insect larve while developing low-grade frostbite? Well, probably. Jim Harrison once called ice fishing “The Moronic Sport” and he was a first-rate upper-Midwest outdoorsman. Well,  moronic I am, then. But there is the solitude (if you’re alone) or the camaradirie (if not). And of course, if you’re successful, nothing beats a plate of fried bluegills, and even Jim H. would agree with that.

Anyway, I’ve been out a few times so far, and my plan is to go at least once a week. I have hit two lakes here in Madison–Monona and Wingra. Monona Bay is a lovely place to fish for bluegill and crappie if you don’t mind two or three hundred other people fishing with you. Even if you are alone, it’s not much for solitude, and the folks out there aren’t exactly some sort of universal brotherhood of anglers either, particularly when only some are catching fish. It’s not like there’s any violence, just what I might call bad vibes. Plus, I always envision the ice sinking under all that weight. Eeks.

I’ve hit the Bay twice this year, both times before Christmas. I only caught three bluegills the first time, but brought home 19 two days later. The bite is usually very good here early in the season, and judging from the current reports, it has slowed down considerably. This of course leads to all sorts of fighting about overfishing, reducing the bag limit and implementing a size limit. It seems everyone becomes a fisheries biolgist when they stop catching fish.  Meh.

But then there’s my new favorite lake, Wingra. It is a gem, and, I think, the Thinking Man’s Ice Fishing Spot. The lake is not crowed — one time this year, I was the only one out there. That’s solitude. And if you find the fish, the action is just as good as the Bay.  And there are perch to go along with the gills and crappies. 

I’ve been on Wingra three times this year. The first time, a complete stranger invited me to fish with him, and he put us on some decent fish over by the Arboretum. How’s that for camaraderie? The other two times, I flew solo, fishing right out from the Knickerbocker Boathouse. The last time I went, it was at the end of our recent cold snap. It was about five degrees and the wind was howling. My skimmer was frozen and totally useless. I was having such a hard time keeping snow out of my hole that I wound up hovering over the hole and hand-lining the fish in, Nanook of the North-style. But I had a blast, and caught a mess of perch to boot. Overall, I’ve brought home about a dozen gills, four crappies, and ten perch, and threw back many more.

The knock on Wingra is that the bluegills are small. And they are. They don’t get much bigger than seven inches, and most are smaller. This is a result of stunting, as far as my research tells me, and it has been this way for a long time. But I don’t mind cleaning small fish. And, as pops always said, the small ones taste better. The perch and crappies all tend to be better sized, although, again, not huge.

I’ll admit I like catching big fish, and sitting in a nice heated shack to stay warm, but there’s something to be said for accepting the lake and the weather for what it is and taking the simple approach to catch some fish. That, I think, is the Thinking Man’s approach to ice fishing.

UPDATE

I went out again on Lake Wingra on my three-day weekend. Fishing was not so hot. Short perch and a bluegill on the first outing, one gill and two perch on the second. Here’s a photo from day two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, I took no photos from my more successful outings.

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