Mantua 12/27

[Hnaf]

So took my new Christmas presents up for a first ice fishing trip this year to Mantua (also a first for the 3 of us that went) to give things a try. We were on a relax schedule so we didn't get to the lake till about 11am with air temps about 28F. We found a spot after some looking around in the north west portion of the lake about 100 yards south of the shoreline and about 1/3 the way across the lake from west to east. Water depth was about 8' deep and all fish were caught/marked right on the bottom. Ice had about a 3" crust on the top from what looked like a slush layer that has frozen on top of the 6" of clear ice under it for about an 9" total thickness. That upper layer made it hard to judge what you were walking on underneath it.

Bluegill, Perch, LMB, and Trout were brought to the hard deck over the next 4 hours we were on the ice. Jigs tipped with wax worm or night crawler did best. Trout seemed to have a think for the silver colored jigs.

Perch and LMB had what looked like baby bluegill in their stomachs and a couple of the larger perch had baby lmb in their stomach's too. Trout and bluegill had some dark colored snail like creatures in theirs.

Very fine day to be on the ice!



Additional details are here (lengthy blog post): http://hnaf.blogspot.com/2013/12/decembe...antua.html
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[Fin-S-Fish]

That last pic you have has a little tiny lmb along with the dime sized bluegill. Some of the skin is melted by the fish's stomach acid but enough skin left to see it's an lmb. Was that in the trout stomach or lmb stomach?
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[Hnaf]

There are 2 baby lmb in that picture I think. Each was a different one of the larger perch. The trout only had snails in their stomachs, same with the gills. The LMB that I cleaned had only baby gills in it.
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[Fin-S-Fish]

Wow didn't realize the big perch are taking bass fingerlings jeez! The bigger trout tend to have the most perchlets and dime gills. Snails are very common in the trout. That is pretty aggressive perch!
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