Just got back from what likely will be my last ice fishing trip of the year. The lake is free of any loose snow, only a few hard piles where the plow went are left. We found no standing water on the ice. The access was closed to truck traffic, ATV’s and snowmobiles still allowed. I did see a few trucks out on the ice over deep water. We went to the Morris Point Gap area and found very cloudy water, I assume from the rain & melt runoff. I have a shiny chrome plated ice dipper and it was disapearing from sight in as little as 16″ below the water surface in a freshly drilled & cleaned hole. I have not seen it this dirty before. We came back west almost to the resort before we found clear water. Went out to 25′ depth and set up. There we measured 28″ of good ice. With the wind one needed to find a snow pile and set up close to that to get banking snow. The snow was hard and a steel shovel was needed. We did very well Sat. evening and Sun. morning on both walleye and sauger. With sorting it was possible to keep a limit of 13″ +/- sauger. The walleye ran 14-19″. As the trip went on the bite slowed from that good start but the two of us usally managed 4 to 8 keepers a session. A 26″ was the only walleye caught in the protected slot. Caught about half on the set line with a plain hook/minnow and half on various spoon/minnow combos on the jigging line. Reports from other resort patrons were spotty. We ate 2 big fish meals and brought limits of waleye and sauger home.
March 24, 2010 at 12:50 am
#1285617
