Spent the weekend out of Zippel Bay. As of Sunday Nick opened his access to trucks past the creek onto the lake.
We wasted no time moving anything more than our rods,vexilars and tackleboxes into the 6 man sleeper. Immieditley the saugers were on the chew with a couple of dandy keeper walleyes. Top lure was a large pink and white Frostie spoon with a shiner head and a red Moon Glow for the dead stick. Not that other lures were not unproductive but through the duration of the day that was the best producer.
We did a bit of portable running in the noon hours in hopes of finding some better action. We found nothing deeper but were able to ice fish from 23′ into 17′ where we set up for a very short lived flurry of evening eye activity.
Awoke Sunday AM after a much needed slumber from the previous all night road trip and got our portables set in 18 and 19 FOW. Green Doodle Bug was HOT for decent sized saugers in 18′ and pink or red was providing a range of size sauger in 19′ with an occasional eye.
Overall we have had better action on LOW but from the phone tree reports fishing was pretty tough earlier in the week. Better icing some ok fish with family and friends than sitting at home. Not really to much to report for patterns, it was very random, more so than normal. Caught fish on pretty much every lure from Darters to Pimples though some were more productive.
Also I’d like to thank Nick, Deanna and their crew at Zippel Bay for taking fine care of us. It is not often I go with a resort setup but it was a great way to add some extra relaxiation to this trip. -Mark
on a side note, it sounds like shiners are pretty scarce this year. Might want to freeze some of your dead ones left over if you find them, sounds like the later season might come down to frozen shiners. 