CTFishTalk.com: Wood Creek Pond 01/27 - Connecticut Ice Fishing Reports ( CT Ice Fishing Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

With the warm air temperatures and rain throughout Connecticut, today, TurtleKiss (aka Kira) and I decided to head to the northwest corner and check out Wood Creek Pond. We arrived at 10:45 am and parked at the end of the boat launch ramp:

Our plan was to set five traps and watch them from the car. However, although it was raining when we arrived, it felt pretty warm, even though the air temperature was in the mid to upper 30s, probably because there was very little wind. We set our traps in the south cove of the pond, within sight of the ramp:

We set them in seven to eight feet of water, which is about as deep as the south cove gets, other than one spot straight out from the ramp that's 10 feet deep. I also drilled a bunch of holes for jigging and we began working our way around the cove. We found four inches of ice near the spillway dam and six to seven inches of ice around the rest of the cove. There was a little bit of standing water on the ice, but no slush. I tried to drill the holes in the high spots on the ice to avoid the toilet bowl effect. After an hour, neither Kira nor I got even a nibble with our jigs, so Kira began checking out the holes with my underwater video camera. In a hole near the dam, she saw some fish suspended underneath the ice, so I decided to try a more active jig than the waxie baited Hali that I had tied on. I ran back to the car and tied on a yellow perch patterned Lindy Darter. I dropped it unbaited into the hole nearest the dam and jigged it right underneath the hole to check out its action, when a fish flashed past the hole and grabbed it. I had visions of pulling a largemouth bass out of the hole, but it was just a slimy little chain pickerel:

Honestly, though, I was pretty excited because I had never caught anything with the Darter before, and after an hour and a quarter of NOTHING AT ALL, the little chain pickerel looked pretty good. Rolling Eyes

The rain eventually stopped and I explored the pond outside of the south cove. Although I found some spots with eight inches of ice, I couldn't find more than three feet of water anywhere underneath it. And I couldn't find any fish, either. Meanwhile, although Kira occasionally spotted schools of about 10 fish, she didn't manage to get even a nibble on her jig. And we didn't get any flags, either. SeaDog1 (aka Stephen) showed up around 2:00 pm, just after the fog began to roll in. After an hour or so, the wind began to rise and, thankfully, Kira got a flag when she was standing right next to the trap. After an epic struggle, she managed to pull up a mighty eight inch chain pickerel through the hole. I said, "thankfully", because I had been ready to give up on Wood Creek Pond and leave by 2:30 pm. I had checked out every hole in sight with the underwater video camera and didn't see a single fish in the water. Heck, for all I know, the chain pickerel that Kira pulled up was the same one that I had jigged up earlier. Stephen didn't get anything, either. We got off the ice not long after 3:00 pm. While the fishing was pretty much dead today, I'd love to head back there during the Summer and paddle around in my kayak after the lily pads grow in. I'd bet that frogging in all of that shallow water would be a blast.
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Elixir · Joined: 30 May 2011 Posts: 288 Location: Danbury, CT

Great report as always and I bet that pickeral was a toughy! lol Very Happy

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

I guess that Kira's chain pickerel was bigger than mine, after all:

That's a foot long for sure. Here's a photo of the Aqua Vu Micro Camera System that Kira took while using it in the rain:

It works WAY better than I expected it would. I haven't recharged its lithium ion battery, yet, after two long trips. We've been having a lot of fun with it, checking out holes. Well, by "we", I mean "Kira", but I finally used it for a little while, yesterday. Very Happy

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Elixir · Joined: 30 May 2011 Posts: 288 Location: Danbury, CT

lol hers is bigger for sure Razz