Father Daughter Fishing

There is nothing better than a day of ice fishing with family and friends, but there is something extra special about a Father-Daughter day on the ice.

Superbowl Sunday, I was lucky enough to have one of those days with my daughter Ashley. She was not super happy when I told her what time we would be leaving in the morning but I had a lake with good potential and it was about 1.5 hours away so we needed to leave around 4:30 am to arrive before daylight.

We arrived a little later than I had wanted due to my GPS taking me an unfamiliar route with no place to get breakfast along the way, so after a little detour for something to eat and to get on the ice before it got too light, we decided to deviate from our original plan and fish the opposite end of the lake.

I have never been on that end before but the locals say it is a good spot for perch and crappies so we decided to give it a shot. We set up in between a point and an island with a funnel area from deep water to a shallow bay. Looked good on paper but the fish did not seem to want to cooperate.

After a few hours and about 50 holes, I asked my daughter if she wanted to make a little move back into the cove where we were or make a big move to the other end of the lake where I wanted to originally fish, she wanted to make the big move so we packed up our gear and headed to the other end.

This proved to be the right move and one we should have done in the beginning. My daughter, armed with her pink Clam Outdoors jigging rod with a glow red Drop Jig tied on and my Vexilar FLX-20 in hand, was on fish almost immediately.

It wasn't long before she had a pattern that was working, a pattern that was kicking my butt! "Daddy, just drop the jig in the weeds, jig it a little, pull the jig up above the weeds and they just come and get it!"

This was one time we planned on keeping some fish for a fish fry and it's a good thing my girl was catching fish or it would have turned into a pizza night.

We kept 25 decent perch and bluegills, had an awesome father daughter day followed by some deep fried fillets and an incredible Superbowl game.