The Zum

I tried some open water there this morning. Nothing. No hits.

The lake still has ice from the second bay up from Fisherman’s Inn on down to the dam. Its solid too, no inkling of a crack or breach with water in it.

The water temps are screwed up. Three weeks ago I fished and had 42 degree water [checked at 5 feet] and there was ice fairly close to where I fished. A week or so ago I dunked a line and had 41 degree water, also at 5 feet. This morning the water at 5 feet was just barely 42 degrees with the surface sitting at 39 degrees or slightly above….not 40. Water color isn’t bad and the water is between winter pool level and summer pool level. Very little crap in the water too.

Red Horse are surfacing now so fish are moving. An eagle did better with fish than I did as it appeared to have snagged one of the suckers. Lots of Golden Eye ducks right now along with 4 loons.

The highlight of my morning though came on my ride home. I took a back road for a change of scenery and as I drove past a farm I saw a dog in the yard with what looked like a deer. Laying down together. I stopped and backed up and that was enough to get the two to stand up and sure enough it was a deer with a lab. The deer wasn’t too happy with me being stopped and walked off behind a building and the dog followed the deer. They must have been raised together. Crazy.

We need some heat to get things moving along a bit. Another three degrees down deeper and things will fly. Some stability in the water would be a big help too. The forecast sure as heck isn’t going to do the lake any favors for about a week now so now’s a good time to find something else to do. Since the fish were retarded today I picked up a bag of trash today along the water’s edge and brought it home for the G-man to take Friday. We need some heat.

Thanks for the update, Tom.

Any inkling when the ramp might be ice-free? I’d like to dunk the boat to double-check its functionality before I sell it.

Fishermans landing is free of ice but whether the dink will let you launch for a look-see is beyond me. We didn’t see a lot of heat between my post visit and today. I’d imagine perhaps a week given the weather forcasts. Maybe sooner.

thanks

I fished [if one could call it that]this morning for about 20 minutes. The water is up now and plenty of current where I was at. Not tons of trash but there some crap in the water. I drove to the end of Postier’s Point to see if there was any indication that the ice was gone, but there is still heavier ice in shaded area back in Roosh’s Bay. There’s what appears to be slushy crumbled ice on the open water areas in Rattlesnake and from what I could see of the High Banks. A person could boat thru this scree pretty easy but it might be noisy….lol I can’t say what the lower lake looks like as I didn’t get down that far but with the forecast temps for this week I would have a tough time believing that a person couldn’t get on the lake by Friday or Saturday.

I soaked my submersible thermometer at five feet for five minutes and barely came away with 45 degrees. Cold for this time of year. This trip also makes it the latest that I have not caught at least a crappie in the new season save for thru the ice. As noted, the water has some crap on it right now and the lake level monitor site has climbed about three inches since I glanced at it at 5 this morning before leaving to fish. The water has a lot of color from silt right now too with a clarity that allows maybe three inch of visibility.

I think the cold water and current have the fish at bay yet however this weeks weather holds promise so I’ll find other things to do this week.

In spite of the crazy weather yesterday and rising water today I hit the lake for a couple hours and actually did pretty good. Numbers wise it was mediocre with about 20 crappies being caught, but the size was real easy to take. The spread was pretty well between 10 1/2″ and 13″ with the two largest bulging with spawn the only two that made me believe they were hen fish and all others looked more like males. I kept four fish in the 11 inch range for supper tonight.

Plastic started this off today with a purple/chartreuse 1.5″ paddletail doing ok. Then the size had to go up and later another size increase before the bit just seemed to fall on its nose. Just to be sure they were done with a bite I put a chartreuse shad 1″ Gulp minnow on and that was a smart move as I was right back in them.

Had to be at least 8′ deep this morning for any hits at all and with the NW wind that got challenging to cast with a float but as long as I didn’t cast during a gust all was fine. Not much jigging was required today as the waves pretty much gave the jig action. Water temp where I was at was 58 degrees! Still early though and these fish are now way even close to pre-spawn yet. Be a couple weeks for that shift to happen.

If the water doesn’t come up much more than it had when I left the lake this morning the fishing should pick up pretty good.