Late post here, but I finally have a chance to give a little update on the gill bite here in Winona. I went out Friday morning bright and early on Lake Winona before my 9 AM class. I was on the ice shortly after 6 and started catching gills right away. lots of 5-6″ fish and a few 7″ers for the bucket including one 10″ crappie. The fish were quick to inhale a 1/16 oz forage minnow. After class I headed back out to a new area that I’ve never fished before. It is a small body of water and I really wasn’t sure what to expect for depth, water clarity, etc. I drilled a long line of holes along an area that bottle necked down into a creek channel. On the far side of the channel I found a nice sloping ditch from 10 feet into 14 feet of water. It was dink perch one after another with a few gills mixed in. I did pop one very nice 8″ class fish that was gung-ho for that forage minnow, even without bait. I’ve found that by keeping the waxies off your trebles, you often pull a lot fewer marks, but on certain days it is just what is needed to keep the dink fish moving and the big fish biting. In 2 short hours at this area I managed to ice 30+ panfish, and added 4 more nice gills to the bucket. It wasn’t a killer day by any means but in 4 cumulative hours on the ice for the day I can’t complain about icing 8 nice fish in new areas. Tomorrow I will be doing the first “Full-dayer” in a long time. It is rare that I have a day off from school AND work at the same time. But tomorrow is that day. Thank you MLK 
I’ll hopefully have a very detailed and exciting report tomorrow. The conditions are going to be ripe, and I am very excited to put some miles on the sled and tap into some un-pressured gold on the river.
-Cade
