Eau Claire area ice fishing report

First let me start out by giving a big Thanks
to James Holst. I have been pimping him for information and gear all year long and it has paid off in a good way. Thanks James for your accessibility. My gear upgrades this year have been a huge boost to my mobility and fish catching abilty. Here are a few pictures of gear updates. The biggest addition is the Snowsuit I bought from James in late spring. The next is the St Croix Legend ice fishing rod. This rod has the adjustable spring on it. I love this rod it is by far the most sensitive ice rod I ever owned. Last is another Holst tip in the form of Tyger wire leaders on my tipups. I have been catching everything from perch to pike to bass and walleye on these leaders and they are great for ice fishing. Soft and supple and they dont kink very easy. These gear upgrades have put my shacks in moth balls, as I have used my mobility to move until I locate fish.

Nice

Great Report and nice looking fish bigpike Looks like you’ve been very successful with your upgrades. If you get over the Menomonie way shoot me a PM. Maybe we can hook up.

We are truly blessed in the Eau Claire area for some great fishing lakes, especially panfish. I LOVE GILS. and I have been targeting them, I will throw in a tipup or 2 if I am in a good spot for game fish. I have fished Altoona, Wissota, Eau Claire and Marshmiller. I basically struck out on Marshmiller and Altoona, I sensed from other fisherman and my own locater fish were neutral to negative. I tossed those lakes to the side and moved to Little Wissota. Wissota has nice ice that formed after the big storm. I moved over cribs in 16-20′ and found very few active fish. I would drill 50-100 holes in the crib area and keep checking for any fish activity. When I found any “lookers” I would come back to those holes and fish them hard. This paid off in some nice thick gils and a few bass. Lake Eau Claire is a tough lake because of limited access. I do alot of walking and fish flats next to the channel. The gils I found there are in weeds, I have been fishing almost exclusivly with plastics the last few days with nice success. Eau Claire was very slushy last week but has since firmed up nicely for walking….

Great Job Bill!!

Nice job Bill! Paying attention to detail can definately pay off dividends. Lake EC is another one of those true multi-specie backyard gems.Being it is a sister lake to toona surprised someone hasnt pushed the envelope there yet by driving on also. It never amazes me what some people are thinking or not thinking I should say. Again nice job on the multi-specie bounty.Beauty of an eye for the area.

Great report and nice looking fish.

That is an awesome walleye you iced!

Sully

You are off to a great ice fishing season. Great pics and read

Excellent read..Must been a blast

BTW….Happy birthday

Thanks guys, here are my key plastics. I put the bait away the last three days and that did wonders for the hands in the cold and wind. I am pretty impressed with Bros bloodworm, it has caught big bass nice perch and gils. The Shrimpos are killer, I like pushing the body down the hook to give more tail wiggle. I started with waxxies last week and soon changed to two spikes on a green flirty girty. This hammered fish. Last is a home made leader using tyger wire. So far so very good with this leader to make them I use a lighter and melt the plastic together and they are strong as nails