Dunn Pond Revisited

Last month in January I went to Dunn Pond for some ice fishing only to realize when I got there that I forgot to bring the earthworms.  This oversight greatly diminished my chance of catching a Rainbow Trout.  I did catch one Black Crappie, a species on my 2017 wish list.  So the day wasn’t a total loss.  This week I returned on two consecutive days, with my son, Nate on Tuesday and my daughter, Alyssa on Wednesday.  

Alyssa with one of her Rainbow Trout.

Day One - Tuesday February 14, 2017

Nate and I arrived at Dunn Pond State Park at 10:30am.   The ice was quite thick, about 9 inches. The slushy snow on the surface made walking very difficult. 

YUCK!

The weather was sunny, with very little wind, and the air temperature was very comfortable.  We set out 10 tip-ups.  Five baited with Mummichogs* of various sizes and five baited with a nightcrawler/salmon egg combo.   

Got one flag right away.  We waited at least an hour before the next flag popped up.  It was a small 12 inch Rainbow Trout that fell for a nightcrawler/salmon egg bait.  The action continued to be slow with only three more flags and one more 12 inch Rainbow. We didn’t get a single hit on the Mummichogs  but least we didn’t get skunked.

 
                                                                                           Nate tried some jigging.

Day Two - Wednesday February 15, 2017 

Returned the following day, this time with Alyssa.  It was cloudy with almost no wind.  The surface of the pond was a little less slushy than the previous day. We started drilling holes at around 9:30am.  We set up seven tip-ups and then it got busy.  By 11pm we had our limit of three Rainbow Trout per person!  All were caught on the crawler/salmon egg combo.  It was too early to go home so we switched the bait to live Mummichogs to try for Bass and Black Crappie.  After an hour and a half without a flag we decided to call it a day.  I’ll have plenty of smoked trout to snack on while fishing at Lake Winnipesaukee next week!

* Mummichogs are a species of brackish water killifish.  In Massachusetts they're called chubs.  In Maine and New Hampshire they're known as Tommycod.