What are your best fish of 2012? There's still lots of time to upgrade but I think we all need to get back to fishing before winternet takes hold. Here are mine (I know a lot of them aren't very big)
Brown-23"
Rainbow-17"
Brookie-9"
Salmon-36"
Pike-25"
Chain pickeral-10" (first)
Walleye-6" (first)
Striped bass-20"
Smallmouth-18"
Largemouth-19"
Bonefish-20"
Snapper-12"
Bluerunner-9"
Perch-12"
Crappie-9"
Flounder15"
Carp-28"
Bullhead-17"
Channel cat-25"
My understanding is that it's like preston lake in the way that it's managed so yes it's public but you have to cross private land to reach it so unless you parachute in I don't think you can.
I have a piranha max dual beam, it's decent for the price but sometimes it glitches and doesn't give you accurate readings, I'm curious to see how it works on the ice.