On the way to Lake Zumbro my blood was pumping as I got further into the country because of the blanket of snow and all of the drifting everywhere. I pulled into the DNR landing at the Poderosa and against my better judgment I proceeded to the parking area pulling a snowmobile trailer. 
About 30 yards later I was spinning all four tires so I unhooked the trailer, spun it around and was able to get the truck back to where I came in. I hooked up the trailer and after a little rocking I was on my way to Grandpa Ed’s parking lot. I wouldn’t plan on using the DNR landing as they still don’t have it plowed and the snow is deep. 
My original intentions were to play around a little on the lake and then go back to hook up to my gear and do some fishing. But when I finally got on the lake the snow was so deep and fluffy that I didn’t get back for the gear until about 5 hours and 55 miles later. 
The trails around the area were in pretty good shape and hadn’t been beat up yet by many other snowmobilers with 6-12 inches in most places. The ditches on the other hand had 1-3 feet in a lot of places and drifts everywhere. I was able to get to the hills as you head east out of Oronoco before anyone had touched them. I played around here for an hour or more high-marking and busting through drifts. There’s NOTHING like flying up a hill like that and busting through three feet of drifted powder at the top….not being able to see anything as you muscle the sled back towards the bottom. 
After all this work I was pretty exhausted and the thought of skipping fishing for the day crossed my mind (a few times) but I made my way back to Ed’s and hooked on to my tub.
My first and only stop was at the bottom of a high bank where I popped a few holes. I marked a few high fish right away so I grabbed the scoop and a rod and dropped down a larger Diamond jig tipped with a waxie. Two minutes later at about 2:00 I had my first fish….a nice 11.5” crappie. I hole hopped a little without any luck so I set up shop and fired up the heater. The less moving the better because there was 4” of wet slush underneath 6” of snow and my boots were getting wet fast. Over the course of the next 3 hours I caught nine crappies between 9” and 11.5” three of which made it home with me for a meal. Baits that worked were the Diamond jig/waxie, a Forage Minnow/minnow head, and, my best bait, a Rat Finkee/waxie. Just as I was going to leave for the day I set a hook on a fish that made my drag sing. It took the 2lb line off my reel like it was going out of style. Five-ten minutes later I iced beautiful 6lb cat…what a great way to end the day! 
It was an awesome Saturday!! The fish were more aggressive than they have been in a couple of weeks for me. And besides right away in the morning when I saw one other fisherman (who got to his spot in a Mule) I was the only fisherman out there today. Just me and a ton of sleds…it felt kinda strange having the lake to myself 
. None of the landings are in very good shape because of the layer of slush on the ice but the ice measurements I took today were 14-20” although it did look like there was open water at the opposite shore from the fishing pier at Fisherman’s Inn (not sure though since it was getting dark when I saw what I saw). When I was done fishing I took a quick drive to the area that we are supposed to be having the get-together at and drilled a couple of holes. The conditions were the same with 4” of slush and 6” of snow with 14+ inches of ice in the bay but I didn’t check by the shore. I would not recommend driving on the ice with anything other than a snowmobile. A four wheeler might make it but I highly doubt a truck would. Some places are worse than others as far as slush goes.
Make sure you wear some waterproof boots tomorrow if you are coming to the g2g. Cya there!
Chris Low
Doug
[private joke that I just couldn’t resist] 
