Hillmans Road update from the plow.
The Hillman Highway is punched out to nine miles ending just short of the Red Lake Band Reservation boundary or “buffer zone”. Today at the end of the nine mile road the plows have turned north and made a HUGE loop connecting that road with the northern end of the angle road that leaves the Hillman main road at the six mile mark bearing NW towards the tighter, rocky break lines of the North shore. Basically the plows have made a nine mile tall pointed letter “P” on the ice with many off roads, loops and spots for wheel houses.
Walleye action is steady along the angle road at the six mile mark all the way towards the northern shore with solid walleye action also present at the eight mile mark on the main road. Many fishermen and fisher ladies are heading down the angle road to the heart of the famed Crappie Highway; a six mile run of mud and deeper water transitions that head east and west. To clear up some confusion the roads themselves are the Hillman Highway or roads and the “Crappie Highway” is used as reference to the pattern of bottom content and historically good area for crappie action, not roads themselves. Yes it is odd but that is how it went down in history. Some of the good old haunts along the Crappie Highway are starting to give up a few slabs along with some of the nicest perch I have seen.
A few things that we would like to remind wheelhouse owners is to take your wheelhouses off the lake if you plan on leaving them over the week. With the current snow cover any onset of a storm drifts and floods wheelhouses left on the ice in very short order. It is much easier to drop your house at Hillmans and pull it back out the following weekend then it is to have it drift in, flood then freeze in…never a fun job chiseling out a house.
Good luck and enjoy the Outdoors. 
