Central NJ Ice Bass Assassins at it Again! 2/9/14

[Jigman13]

Soooo... yea... I'm addicted to hard water fishing. I blame you all!!!

Annnnywhooo... Dale and I crept out onto the ice around 7 AM this morning on the same middlesex county lake as last weekend. Rather than chippin' holes like last week, Dale brought his gas auger. F'n A does that thing make life a whooooole lot easier lol. Ice was about 8-9"...niiiiiiiiice. And slick too!

Dale starts making his rounds, swiss cheesin' while I set the tip ups. I think we had 9 or 10 out. First 15 mins, five tip ups in, 3 flags and one fish landed--decent bass, not a bad start. As the morning progresses, we get a steady pick of flags. We were popping fish at a nice pace--all bass--up to about 3 lbs. We were pretty jacked up from the solid action. Then a lull. I tell Dale that I'd like to leave around 2 PM. He says cool. The bite has slowed and we're only getting a flag here and there. Again...all bass. Right around 2 PM we start slowly making the rounds to pull up the tip ups.

As Dale starts walking to our farthest set of tip ups I hear FLLLLLAGGGG! He starts shimmying towards the hole and the tip up is dancing all over the place. He flips the tip up and gave the line a slight tug. Game on! I waddle on over as he's fighting the fish and then he reaches down and pulls an f'n TOAD out! Rips a "WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" across the ice and I snapped a pic. He measured her and she taped out at 21.5"! Sweeeetttt. She was easily 5 lbs.

But wait... there's more...

As I continue to go from tip up to tip up, packing it in. BOINGGG! "FLLAAGGGGGG!!!!!" Dale shouts "go get em' buddy!" This tip up wasn't doing the dance like Dale's piggy but it was pulling slow and steady. Then it stopped. Then it pulled some more--again, slow and steady. After about a minute and a half I say screw it. Got some tension on the line, felt the fish dart away and gave the line a quick short snap. Game on! Feels heavy... Slowly getting her up then zzzzzip, zzzzzip, zzzzip... She starts peelin' line through my fingers just as Dale goes "if it's big, it'll rip" lol... I get her to the hole and I let out a holy sh*t. I mean c'mon... It's my 3rd time ice fishing! Dale sees her head come up and lipped her and handed her off to me. A pic, a smooch and a release!

Yep... That's right. Back-to-back 5+ lb'ers right at the whistle! We high-tailed outta there with sh*t eatin' grins on our faces. We fished 9-10 tips ups from 7 AM-ish until 2 PM. We had about 20 flags go up and landed about 75% of them if I recall correctly. My mind was ruined/blurred by the back-to-back toad experience. Here's some pics. Dale... good times dude---good times! Feelin' like an ice bass assassin all of a sudden lol.. I'm getting spoiled on this lake!