Ice fishing for big bass?

I went ice fishing with Capt. M and his co-worker, T. Local lakes were totally frozen, and ice was 8" thick. We fished for yellow perch using wax worm on jig head. We arrived at a lake at 6:30am. It was still dark, and the surface of frozen lake was very slippery because of warm temperature.

Fishing was slow before sun rise, then it picked up. Capt. M used his new gadget, Vexilar (depth and fish finder). It was fun to watch up-and-down movement of fish chasing the bait.


M and T caught more than dozen decent size perches.



Strangely enough, largemouth bass were quite active. We by-catched couple of bass. Weird.


I was kinda bored and wanted to try new things. I hooked shad imitation minnow bait on jighead and jigged. To my surprise, I landed over three pound bass at my first cast. When I was fighting, I worried if the bass is too big to the ice hole. No problem.


Here is another bass with bait on its mouth.


Bass is not the species for ice fishing. But to be honest, bass are more fun to catch than yellow perch and sunnies.

I kept three yellow perches for meal. I made French style steamed perch. It was good.