ice conditions

living far away from many of you guys posting it is hard for me to tell where most of you are reporting ice. i go to school in northern illinois and i have the itch to get back home to northern michigan and do some ice fishing i was woundering how many of you are posting near the 45th parallel. i live in a small town about an hour north of the 45th called cheboygan i am curious as to how soon after retuning home on the 17th should i expect to be fishing. also i do alot of pike fishing and i was woundering if anyone had some input on there favorite ways to catch the toothy devils through the ice. i normally use a line of tipups polar II the wooden one with forty # test greenspot dacron with a fifteen # test terminator titanium leader with a size six treble with golden shiners and the ocasional grey emerald shiner this is very effective and its alot of fun icing 150 of the toothy guys last christmas break i was just woundering if anyone had a different strategy on catching them i want to make things a little interesting good luck to all of you guys out there and stay safe first ice is always the best fishing but also the most dangerous

HEY!!! Another Michigander on the site! Alright! I am from Grand Rapids so I couldn’t tell ya. I would suggest calling a sporting goods store up there and seeing what it is like. Down here we have skim on some of the lakes but nothing worth fishing on. Like I said, most sporting good or bait shops should have at least a general ice report for ya.

well its good to know theres more than one person from michigan on this site where do you fish around grand rapids? also the bait shops in cheboygan are less than helpful people around town are really shady as far as letting others know where there is safe ice. so they can fish with out a million guys running by on sleds and drilling countless numbers of holes. there is even one guy around town that has a danger thin ice sign that he puts at the launch before he goes out. so figuring out when ice is safe without checking it myself is nearly impossible. let me know when the ice gets safe around you and post some pics thanks man