Thanks to a full week off work and mother nature for pushing me off my normal early season spots I was able to spend the most of the past 10 days up in Malmo covering new water and hunting for big Eyes.
I had a blast spending time with my dad and friends trying out some new spots on da pond and hitting some of my favorite Malmo area small lakes. We started in the mornings heading out with as many folks as I could round up to cover water. Each day began by getting our to our target area early enough to drill plenty of holes before primetime and setting up multiple houses and tip-ups in different locations/depths to figure out a pattern.
Our best success, similar to what we experienced two weeks ago, was to set up the houses in 18-22 FOW on the outside edge of breaklines then run tip-ups at varying depths up the break using big sucker minnows. One of my friends also had some awesome results sitting on top of the break sight fishing watching big fish crush his bait in 12 FOW over still green weeds.
With a little scouting starting by walking before taking anyting more than a sled and spud we were able to find plenty of safe ice in the Malmo area… All fish were no more than 20 mins away. The go-to lures were heavier jigs (lightening spoons, buckshots, and Macho Minnows) with bright colors (Chartruese/orange, Green/Glow white, and Glow Red) For keeper eyes running a deadstick witha a #6 plain chartuese gamatsu hook and small fathead produced the best results.
As always use extreme caution when dealing with the crazy ice conditions… But if you’re sitting at home on the couch you’re missing out on some AWESOME fishing right now!!
Happy New Years to all 
on 8″ of good ice before the NE winds pushed the whole sheet of ice starting only a few feet from shore 
