Hello,
Me and my son will be in the Presque Isle / Boulder Junction area the week of New Years and wondering if anyone can help us out on finding some panfish. We will be catch and release and just looking to get on some steady action, they don’t need to be hogs just catching some fish.. We ice fish 3 to 4 times a week in the Polk, Burnett Washburn County areas so if anyone wants to swap info please let me know. Thank you and any pointers are appreciated!
One thing that may help you is to go to Lake Link and check the Wisconsin Fishing Report, and the bait shop will help you out. I was in that area today, Trout Lake, just south of Boulder Junction, that has just ice over, great walleye, whitefish lake. Good luck ! 
Call or stop into Kurts Island Sports in Minocqua, 715-356-4797. He’s typically got good, up to date ice and fishing reports. Mark typically posts Kurt’s weekly fishing report here in the Minocqua forum.
Scott’s right, Trout is just iced up but it’s a big deep lake and usually one of the last to freeze.
Between Presque Isle and Boulder Junction…there’s SO much good water. All hold panfish.
I’d also recommend getting on the WI DNR’s lake search feature. You can search by county(Vilas) and get info on species, lake depths and sizes, and what ones have public access. Many, if not most, do have access – but it’s not always that easy to tell as it’s not necessarily a boat ramp.
Thank you for the info, very much appreciated!
I’m no real help for a recent report or things like that, but I do know that we have caught some panfish on Armour Lake before. We had family that had a cabin there, and rarely would see another hole drilled. The numbers of fish weren’t anything overly substantial besides pesky rock bass, but what we did catch were always quality size. There are 2 sunken rock piles (about 3-4′ deep at the top) on the Eastern side of the lake that we would catch fish around. Punch holes in 8-12′ around it and don’t sit over a hole if you aren’t marking fish.
***Please proceed with caution – I am no way saying that the ice is safe or anything like that as it has been a while since I’ve ice fished it***
During the summer it was not uncommon to have 75 fish days (smallmouth) either. ~30 years ago it was a great walleye lake, but now I haven’t caught one there in years. It still gives up some solid musky action too in the bays during late summer.
That’s a beautiful area of the Midwest. You should be able to find plenty of lakes that are never touched ice fishing.
I wanna go!
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