Rockport ?

[HOOSIER]

What are the odds of Rockport having fishable ice by Christmas? I'm really hoping to fish it over the Holidays. If Rockport won't be frozen, what lakes have good perch fishing that will be frozen?

Thanks!
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[mateo]

I drove by Rockport saturday. It had VERY little ice near the inlet. The rest of it was wide open.

Echo was mostly capped but I'm sure it's thin. I just observed from the freeway as I was driving by.
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[FishNCoach]

[][font "Comic Sans MS"][black] Hi- I was at Rockport about 3 weeks ago, I want to say the water level was really low, we had a hard time putting in the boat, with the cold, there could be a little ice by now, they also planted about 10,000 new young fish in rockport, so the fishing could be small ones for a while, if you go let us all know, thanks for the report![/black][/font]
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[Out4Trout]

[cool]Well, in case you haven't heard the bad news, the perch fishing isn't that good at The Rock the past year or so. There was a huge die-off in the Spring of '05 and a lot of small perch got killed by anglers the year before too. If you want a lake that has good perch fishing, you should try Jordanelle this year or Pineview is starting to make a comeback. I don't know about Echo, but I think they had a bad die-off there about two years ago. Also, Mantua has quite a few perch in it, but you've got to hit the right hole between weedbeds to find a good school of them.

With that being said, however, to answer your question about ice at the rock, it typically has safe ice on New Years Day. My fishing buddies and I had some decent success at the rock last year, but there's a lot less perch, and they are more spread out now and there's less fish competing for the same food amounts (so the fish are a little tougher to trick), which really makes you have to work for them these days. I went there about 3 times last season and remember that most anglers that we talked to and saw only caught less than 5 perch. We got our limits once or twice, but again, we had to bust our butts and get creative to find good active schools of them. Fish finder is a must as well, unless by just blind luck you happen to stumble on a good hole at your first drill. The flip side of the perch die-off there is that the 'bows are getting bigger (with having less perch to compete with for the same food sources) and they are a lot of fun! Good luck when you go, and let me know if you'd like any tips for up there.
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