Thin ice Brookies
 

Brian ( Night shift) and I and I drove alot of miles to find enough ice to fish on ( for trout) we settled on a lakes region pond known for it's Brookies... I drew first blood with a fat brookie on a shiner in about 18" of water and missed a few more a short time latter one on a shiner.. one on a meal worm power bait combo...

Brian got the "money" fish with a hefty brookie that took a dillie in about 12" of water... we had to leave early as the ice was getting scary.. we only had about 2 1/2" ( the water was only knee deep) when we started... it was softening by mid day.... Night shift crawled on his belly to retrieve his last tip up... the big brookie had a 4" senko in it's gut..
Brian jigged all day... no interest was shown by the target species..

Nice. We have a local pond that had up to 4" in most spots this weekend. No trout in it though...

It was an exciting day indeed. I'll never foget the look on your face when you tried to look down the hole I was jigging.

The ice only settled an inch....:rotf2:


The water was only knee deep, but it was a sign to retrieve our gear and call it a day.

Nicely done.....great pics

I didn't know I could still move that fast!

Lucky ducks , still open water around this location
nice catch , you eat them ?

took the big one... washed and applied a liberal coating of sea salt and cracked black pepper to the body cavity..,in melted butter and a touch of Veg. oil I sauted about a 1/4 cup of vadallia onions, 1/4 cup of celery and about a dozen leaves fresh tarragon and about the same of fresh parsley leaves from the garden ( I keep a hot box around the herbs all winter)these were finely chopped and added to the mix ... once the onions, celery and herbs were ready I crumbled in about 2 cups of corn bread ( I keep individual corn breads in the freezer for these ocasions.. we eat lot of fish and Love corn bread with fish, thus bake them all at once and freeze after vacume sealing) I added enough melted butter to bind the mixure and added it to the body cavity.. I rubbed the outside( skin side) with a generous amount of olive oil/veg. oli mix and popped it in a 350 oven for 45 minutes... the flesh of this critter was salmon pink.. and i can honestly say.. there aint nothing sweeter than fresh caught fish especialy when it just came through the ice... I enjoyed mine with a ice cold Sam winter larger...

:drool:

plus 1

I gave mine a one hour bath in Boddingtons. Then an egg wash followed by a coating in buckwheat flour, and lightly fried in a skillet of olive oil. When I was done, all that was left was the skeleton.