Fished out of Highbanks this past weekend with my son and 3 buddies from WI. The warm up in weather was nice compared to the frigid freezer of last week. Got up there Thurs night and hit the ice Fri morning with sunshine and 4F. Rick has a great road system plowed with roads leading to Perchbar, Zoomers and Big Island areas. Two of the guys used a permanent rental that was in about 18fow between highbanks and the birches landing. Fri they had steady action and had about 30 keeper perch with a few pike bite offs. The rest of us headed farther south and fished the sand wave area in 20-34fow. Picked up 4 pike on dead sucker minnow on the tipup and kept 3 nice fat ones. Had five flags and only one dropped bait. All on circle hooks and every one in the corner of the mouth. Picked up a few decent perch and a bunch of little ones. After lunch on the ice we headed to the area of Waypoint 54 and surrounding humps on the Reelbottom map. Love that Navionics chip in the H2Oc for getting around. Fished until past dark hoping for an eye bite but no go.
Sun morning was cloudy and 12F with a few flakes. The portable group hit some humps NW from highbanks out from Tamarack point in 18-32fow. Marked fish and had lots of nibblers but just no go. About 10 we headed for Zoomers area and a spot we’ve caught plenty of perch the last two years. Within 2 minutes of getting there we had jumbos on the ice. Fish were deep in 28-34fow and all were spitting up nymphs. The 3 of us had about 25 keepers by 12:30 and made the trek across ice to join the other guys for lunch at the rental shack. They had slow action but steady. Watching fish all day on the camera. They had one nice pike and pictures of a beauty 23″ eye right in the middle of the slot. We headed back to the west side and had bright sunshine for the rest of the day. The bite had slowed but still managed to add another 15 or so keepers to the pail. Lots of short ones mixed in.
All the fish came on fatheads and a variety of jigs. From pimples to buckshot’s to the single hook eyeballs and Genz stuff. The road system is great and off road travel is ok. My Suburban doesn’t have the greatest tires and I got around alright. Keep the speed up and watch for drifts. Have a shovel along in case a surprise drift finds you. 
Ice was 18-24″ in the areas we fished. Did hit one slush spot south of Zoomers and it appears to be a small shove opened up in that area going north and south.
Headed home Sunday. Thanks to Rick and Kim for a nice stay. All in all a fun trip with some good friends and family. 