Got up this morning in Gaylord and decided to switch lakes for today. I had heard the guys talking about "Fletcher's Pond" and that guys were fishing it. When I was on Ostego yesterday, the fisherman that I was fishing with began to tal about this location and how good it is for pike in early ice. It was an hour east of Gaylord but got up early and headed over.
First I went to a place called "Jack's Landing", here's their entrance sign. Looks like my kind of place..they rent shanties, etc. But they weren[t open yet.
I ended up not launching at Jack's but to the public ramp that is right there.
I saw a few people out on the ice off the launch ad went over to a couple. As I'm standing there, he gets a flag and pulls a big crappie out of the hole. I was on the ice less than 30 minutes and hooked this pike. It looked bigger in person!!
Then in another 10 minutes I hooked this crappie.. proabably about 10 inches..
Here's some pics of the ice. It was a good 5 inches in my area. It looks like the ice was formed, then broke up and then refroze. Pretty crazy looking and slick. I heard there is open water by the dam and in another area.
I had got a camera for Christmas and was itching to use it. I cut a hole about 2 ft away from the hole I was fishing in. I put a jigging rap with a minnow on it hoping for some more of those crappie. All of a sudden I see a nice pike come in. It hammered my lure and I set the hook, it's taking drag and I'm loving it. But then it wrapps it's self around the camer core in the hole near me and I lost it. LOL. I changed the camera and put it looking down my fishing hole. In another few minutes another pike is at my lure and I saw it hit. In the excitement of playing it I lost that one too. Man those things go crazy when they are hooked. Awesome to see it under the water.
Then I settled into catching gills, probably caught 20 small ones on a tear drop tipped with beemoths. Again it was fun watching them coming in and hitting. The water is only about 5 ft all over this lake as far as what I was told. Reminds me of Willow Slough in Indiana.
I had several more flags and caught this nice bass on one of them..
Headed back to Indiana, a 5.5 hr drive! Crazy but it was great. Special thanks to the guys from Iceshanty on the Michigan thread that helped me.
