With heavy fog and freezing rain in the area on Friday night, our trip to Hayward ice was postponed until Sunday. After going to bed at 7:00 on Saturday, my alarm was off at 12:15 AM and it was time to hit the road. By 5:30 we were on the ice of Lac Courte Oreilles, set up off a sharp drop with gravel and sand. Our target was walleye. We searched the area and found a decent looking point but unfortunately could not pull any marks in this area. By light we decided it was time to search for signs of life on the lake. We packed it in and headed to the truck in search of the nearest shanty town. We found a group of trucks set up on the ice, and settled in with the rest of them. The ice was in good condition with 12-14″ of hard ice. Some areas were slushy but the traveled paths were in great condition and limited snow was great for foot travel. The area we started in was about 10 feet with heavy vegetation growing up to 6 ft. The key was finding areas with a break in the vegetation and the crappies and bluegills could be caught anywhere from the bottom to 6 feet below the ice. I used a camera for a lot of the day, while Justin sight fished the fish in extremely clear water. It was awesome! The action was not fast and furious but the ones we caught were beautiful and fought very hard. I managed 5 nice crappies and a good bluegill with many smaller fish. The bait that outfished the locals was a tiny ice fly that I found in some trout fishing tackle at Ace hardware. Tipped with a fresh waxie they could not resist it. The only people keeping up were the guys with tip downs. A technique that did not seem very exciting, but proved to be productive. Justin had 6 nice crappies and also many smaller fish. Justin had a bonus pike and I had a couple bass. We had 2 flags but both fish took the shiner deep in the weeds and I could not connect with either of the fish. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a musky on the camera! Justin also saw one below his ice hole. I have never seen a musky up close and personal before, and it was very cool. I had a puppet minnow down at the time and for a minute I thought the fish was going to take my offering. With the slower activity in the crowd we tried a few other things to try and get something going but it just didn’t work out. We fished off the weed line in 18 ft of water, hoping to find some roming crappies and walleyes in the sand/weedline transition but were met with very little activity. As the sun went down we moved deeper onto a gravel flat in 15 feet of water on the edge of a 25 ft hole with cribs, and were greeted with many marks and 2 short hits, but again we could not put a fish on the ice. By 6:30 it was time to get off the ice and head back home. All in all it was a very fun day. Everything from the drive up, to the fishing, to the wonderful scenery, to the drive home went great. And I also must add that the people up there were extremely nice. Every person we talked to offered information, and one guy even gave us a bunch of jigs to use for walleyes, explaining that we would not see much success with our jigging spoons and rapalas like we use here. One funny thing is the fact that everyone there uses a power auger exclusively. Even though we have a foot of ice here, and they did not have much more there, we were the ONLY ones with a hand auger. One guy felt so bad for us he let us use is strikemaster. Justin and I both found it commical, and when we returned to La Crosse it was back to everyone owning a hand auger. 
The trip turned out to be a success and I am hoping to get back in the area (different lake) before the ice season is over.
Here is a picture of a jigging rap 6 feet below the ice, with weeds 8 feet down. The image isn’t the best quality, but the clarity was insane. I could see my jig and plastic in 18 feet of water on the bottom. 
Monday was a new day and it was off to try for some crappies and bass before ultimately heading to the dam and hitting up the walleyes and saugers. The crappies and gills were biting but were running small. I iced 3 or 4 crappies in the upper 9″ range but that was it for anything close to keeping size. Justin caught the big bass of the day at 15″ and I had a few in the 12-13″ range. Kyle was also with us and had a couple of similar size. The dam turned out to be loaded with fish, and they were in the biting mood, but all were running small. The biggest fish of the night was a 13″ walleye, which I caught 2 of. I caught 10 walleyes and saugers and Kyle and Justin also caught several, but the fishing was not what we had hoped for. The fish were still around on the flat in 13-17 feet of water well into the dark, but bites were few and far between. By 8:00 after Kyle had already left, Justin and I decided to call it a night. Pictured 2nd to last you will see an average (dink) walleye in the 13″ range.
Today we decided it would be fun to try our hands at some tip up action. We were hoping for a good bite and some bonus crappies and gills while we were at it, but were found with fairly slow action and a consistantly tough panfish bite. We had 4 flags in about 3 hours before calling it a day and heading to the dam again. One of the flags produced a nice pike pictured below. It was a fun fight with some good runs, but I wish we could have had a little more action on the tip ups. The dam was not too great either. I again caught 10 with only one coming close to eater sized- a 12 or 13″ sauger. Still a little small to keep but if I had a few on the ice of larger sized and it was tough I would have thought about it. Overall a tough week of fishing, but I sure had a lot of fun and made some great memories. On to another area tomorrow, tip ups and crappies. Surely the 6th day of fishing in a row will produce some good action, right?
