With ice fishing days being numbered, I managed to get out this weekend for a great day on the ice.

I have to admit, this season has been a struggle on the ice. I have put a lot of time this season to trying to catch some walleye, pike, perch and crappie on Croton Pond this year with not a lot of success.

I have fished a few other smaller bodies of water but not a lot of luck on those either. Being a weekend warrior it is hit or miss depending on the weather but I have to go when I have the time.

Instead of trying to fish some of these larger bodies of water, I had spotted a lake just north of White Cloud back in the fall when looking for some areas to small game hunt. It was a lake that is close to home, has a public boat landing which means the lake has public access.

I never fished this lake before but it was part of the scouting I do when I don't have my son with me. I try to fish lakes and locate some fish before I get my son there. This time I used a depth map that I found on the Department of Natural Resources website.

I had read that people were catching a variety of fish on this particular lake so I thought I would give it a go.

I had a friend in town by the name of Adam that is a heck of a good fisherman so we decided to head out and give it a try.

First we had to make sure the ice was safe and drill a hole a few feet off the bank. Then using the lake map, we kept digging holes working our way to the deepest area of the lake. The lake for the most part was shallow around 5 to 7 feet but eventually we found water that ranged between 12 and 22 feet deep and that is when we starting marking some fish.

I caught a few small blue gills on a waxworm and at first the lake didn't look to promising but then in about 22 feet of water a 13 inch crappie hits my line and both my buddy and I were both pleasantly surprised.

So we drill a few more holes and discovered the crappie were moving around the area and then found a couple holes that started producing fish. We used minnows and waxworms and there were times where we were getting a lot of hits and then things would calm down.

We started icing more and more perch then the pike started hitting. We caught 5 pike between the two of us with a couple larger fish getting away. I caught a lot of small blue gill but kept pulling in crappie.

Adam and I came back with 24 crappie on a lake we have never fished so it was not bad haul at all. I will say Adam caught the bulk of the fish but if we both would have iced all the fish we lost, who knows the number of fish we would have brought back.

We skinned the fish, heated up the grease, battered up the fish and enjoyed one heck of great fish fry. Plus there was enough fish for two more fish fry's, so I'll be enjoying those crappie 2 more times.

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