Ignored the pain of the Shingles again this morning and got out for a couple hours. Set set the boat down turned the live scope on and there's a school of fish showing. third cast met a 19" very powerful Smallmouth. The first run this fish came straight out of the water and cleared the surface by a good 5 feet, explosive jump. It jumped three more times and a couple deep runs that were hard to keep up with on lite tackle before I led it to my thumb . After a photo and release I got back to the trolling motor which I had put on anchor made another cast and had one almost take the rod out of my hand, another jumper but it didn't get the air the first fish did. this time I took time to retie my jig and the fish had moved so no more next cast fish. I left the trolling motor on anchor and set there and cast till another heavy 18" fish loaded up and the fight was on again. By the time I got that fish squared away and photo the wind was up and the shingles telling me to get out of the sun so I took it to the ramp. Fun couple hours but the heat and the Shingles don't mix,,,maybe night fishing?

I walked into my machine shed this afternoon and was shocked to find a crime scene. A masked bandit had ripped one latch off of my tackle box, opened the other and there was a quarter of the contents in a 3 foot circle! 😳 🤬🤬🤬 There were bluegill hooks, snells, jigs and lures everywhere. He had eaten the soft plastics off the jigs, eaten the floats from a walleye snell, and pulled out and consumed most of my plastics including 4 musky 7" paddle tails. Probably 6 packages of worms and twister tails.

Chewed up my favorite jitterbug and Rapala and ate several bobbers. Even Chewed on bullet weights. Oddest thing was there were 2 crank baits inside the fish basket sitting next to the box. How he got that accomplished I have no idea.

I can only hope he got a hook or 4 attached to him. I've kept that tackle box in this shed for years and never had a problem. Maybe too many scented plastics?

Anyway, it's a good thing that I got a new tackle box for Christmas, I'm just glad I procrastinated filling it. 😄

We had big plans to score on crappie today at a local lake thru the ice. The sky was as blue as we have seen it since last October, so the conditions were quite inviting to be outdoors. Temps were hovering at 20 degrees, but with the direct sunshine overhead it felt like swimsuit weather!

Drilled 3 holes to get started over one of my favorite crappie structure locations on this lake, and as soon as I dropped 2 lures down the adjacent holes I had both rods double over with a fish strike at the same time. I handed off a rod to my wife, who was standing nearby soaking up some "rays" as we began to get set up with our gear. Up came 2 largemouth bass from their darkened lair 16' below our feet. Long, lanky and very hungry by all appearances. I think we could have been using acorns on safety pins for bait. These poor fish were starving. Bass season is closed until the end of May, so we slipped them back down into the holes.

Got one rod back down and on the drop we had another bass pick up our offering, only a bit smaller than the first two. "Wow", I thought..."we just might be in for a good day on the ice!"

My wife had set her chair up and was leaning back to get a start on her Winter tan...deciding not to be interested in fishing today. The white crystaline snow covered lake reminded her of the white sands at Siesta Key Beach near Sarasota, FL. Uh oh...she was drifting off into a Southern "cabin fever" mindset and although it was a balmy 22 degrees out now, all she could think about was hearing the woosh of the Gulf making a touchdown on the beach heads of a place far away from this Michigan chill. She told me on the way to the lake that she might have the attention span of a toddler today...and she was right! No big deal...any day outside of the house at this time of year, regardless of the time duration, is a good day in my book!

We chose to sit out and soak it all in without popping up the ice hut. That would keep us more mobile anyways. Turns out the fish shut down on those 3 holes just as soon we had landed the three. After moving 2 more times in a long distance triangulation pattern we decided to call it a day after just an hour.

Could not find the crappie or bluegill that normally reside in these haunts, but admittedly, we really did not spend much time in the seeking mode today!

I think I had better start doing some online research for a VRBO or other form of lodging this week, as I believe that my wife was bitten by a travel bug this afternoon while we were fishing!

Best regards to you all on your next trip to the water, whether it is frozen or wide open!