What do you catch?

I have always been excited just thinking of Ice fishing, but I have never known what you catch...

There is no ice here so I can't try it but I would love to know more about the fish, I love the idea of being able to get right out without having to buy a boat!

Perch and pickerel are mainly what I have caught ice fishing.

What sizes do you get them up to?

Perch up to 14" and pickerel up to 20".

Nice, I'd love to try it sometime, but the closest icy place is Antarctica (which really isn't that far)

[PADavid]

You are excited about sitting on hard water hoping a half frozen fish will bite? You are freaking nuts - ice fishing sucks, it is just the only fishing we can do when the lakes and rivers freeze!

The fish do not fight and the cold is well, COLD!

Spoken like a true warm weather guy Dave! Ice fishing is awesome! you can get to places that are otherwise really hard to reach. you don't get the crowds, and statistically a lot of the big fish are caught in winter! you haven't fished til you have caught a 5 pound landlocked on a jigging pole the thickness of a pencil lead! Having said that, the snow, the wind, the cold can really suck. But, they now make portable shanty's that kickass! I mean they are light, mobile, comfortable and easy to heat. I will always be a spin fisherman first, but the hard water can really be awesome too! and when you live in maine where we have 9 months of winter and 3 months of bad sledding, you learn to get out n fish! I spin fish all year round, but getting to the river is not always easy at 20 below!

[Sea Hag]

I grew up in Minnesota and we used to ice fish a lot (I live in sunny California now, but...)

On the lake in front of our house (Lake Minnetonka) in the winter you'd catch mostly crappies through the ice. That's about the only time of year you'd want to eat them cause in the summer they'd get wormy.

Occassionally you could hook into a nice largemouth bass, or even a Northern Pike. Fun trying to get those blasted northerns up through the hole... needless to say they don't necessarily want to cooperate when you try to get their head into the hole.

I spent a weekend up north with a boyfriend and his parents in their larger fish houses on Whitefish Bay, I think it was. We caught mostly eelpout up there. We'd throw them out on the ice and the local Indians would come and pick them up and take them home and eat them. They were a bit of a plague on the lake up there, so they didn't mind us removing a few. What we were really up there fishing for was walleye. My boyfriend's stepfather caught one that weekend that was about 14-15# if I remember right. Nice fish.

Those houses were heated and had bunks in them. You could sit in them quite comfortably in jeans and a t-shirt.

Ah, the good ol' days!

[crappiekid24]

Ice fishing is great! Bluegills, trout, perch, pike, bass, crappies and walleyes will all hit through the ice. I have caught lots of fish this year through the ice. It is alot of fun. The fish do put up a good fight.