I am thinking about hitting Mantua this afternoon, can anyone tell how this ice is looking, I want to take my snowmobile to pull the ice house.
Hey Jimmy! Wish I could join you today! Head over by the inlet, seems like they’re doing the most catching over that way. The ice is still plenty thick, you won’t have to worry about that.
Great video in your profile, btw!!
WOW, what a day at Mantua!!! We got there about 1:00pm if I remember right. I unloaded the snowmobile and took off for the ice right away, I wanted to make sure everything was good to go as far as the snow depth. If the snow is too deep it can make it hard to pull the ice house.
The snow was about 1.5 to 2 feet deep, and all powder! It was cool to hit the snow like that for the first time since I bought the snow mobile. I haven’t gone through snow that deep with it yet.
Since it didn’t seem to tough to go through, my partner Bryan, and I hooked up the ice house and off we went, to the little knoll. We got set up and the perch hit us hard! We could see tons of them on the aqua-vu and had a blast. I havn’t caught that many perch in one day let alone 2 hours! It was on fire!!!
We both were using small ice flies tiped with wax worms. Red seemed to be the color of choise. Bryan ended up using a plain hook with a waxi on it and did just as well as he was with the ice fly.
We were in about 12 feet of water, but the weeds came up about 2 feet from the bottom. So we were fishing about 2 feet above the weeds.
No gills, no trout, just LOTS of perch. All perch went back in the water though. We didn’t really think we were going to hit enough of the bigs one to take home. As it turned out if we would have kept the bigger ones we would have had enough for a few dinners though. But since we only had 2 hours to fish we figured we would just let them all go for another day.
Nice job!! I wonder why it was just the perch willing to play today? It’s been a weird winter..I still haven’t caught a 'gill out of Mantua yet since it capped!
I’m trying to decide if I should hit Newton or Mantua this Friday. What are your plans this week?
Is the little knoll that hill out on the far side that runs out into the water? I might be heading up there in the next 48 hours…
I have caught gills every trip. Use small ice flies(green/pink) and they are not always on the bottom. Sometimes they hit only about half way down.
Justin
They just seem to be congregating in areas I haven’t been fishing. Haven’t seen very many on the sonar for some reason…mostly the perch on the bottom and the occasional trout.
Went this evening from maybe 4:30 to dark. Not a nibble, for me or anybody else I talked to? Couldn’t get away until after the storm had passed and the sky cleared, so I wasn’t expecting much, but a few guys had been there much of the day…[frown]
Whereabouts where you fishing?
I just got back from mantua with my 6 year old. We only lasted 2 hours, and only caught 2, 3" perch. We even used 2lb test and the smallest ice flies I had tipped with wax worms, usually the way to go for me, just not this time.
Over by the inlet?
between the inlet and the hill
I was the latecomer that walked past you then. I fished in10-20 feet in several areas from SW of the hill to south of it, and found nothing at any depth. No sonar, I just start up from the bottom and reel it up a crank every few minutes until something happens. There were 6 or so other set ups and I didn’t see or hear anybody catching.
I was the big guy with the kid on the snowmobile. Both places we stopped I could look down the hole with my coat over my head and see all kinds of dinky perch in the moss. It’s time for some tiger muskies.
I am heading out there on Tuesday morning to hit it hard, as long as I still have the snowmobile and trailer, I am sell the set for $1200 so I fgure they will be gone VERY fast. ut as long as I have them I am hitting Mantua hard with the vexilar and aquaveiw. I’m planning on just moving every ten min until I find the fish again. I am hoping for another day like I had last week.