Windy City Fishing Classic On Ice II - Ice Fishing!

Well I finally got to walk on water today! Hard water, that is... ICE!

I've never been out ice fishing until today. Well, I didn't actually do any fishing, but I watched while other members of the WindyCityFishing.com forum fished. And of course, I took photos with my Fuji S5 Pro camera and a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens. I haven't used the S5 in quite some time and it felt good to use it in the cold weather. Using custom white balance with the help of a PhotoVision Digital Calibration Target, the photos came out remarkably well. Be sure to click on each image for a closer look.

It was a great day to be out fishing at Deep Lake in Lake Villa, IL. The weather was around 34 degrees with slight snow flurries and very little wind. The ice was about 12 inches thick, so no fear of falling into the water. With my heavy down jacket and hood along with a ski mask, gloves and thick soled shoes, I didn't feel cold at all.

We had about 13 forum members out fishing today and while some of them caught some perch, they were too far away from the area I was at. Nobody in our area caught anything, but a couple of nibbles were felt by one of the members.

While there was very little action happening, I enjoyed talking to everyone about fishing and learning about ice fishing. Some of the guys had electronics with them which tells them where the fish are and also one of them had an underwater camera as well. Fishing has gone high tech, that's for sure!

After fishing, we all went to Jack & Lidia's Resort for a great lunch.

Thanks goes to WCF site administrator Jason Norris for putting the event together!