Walleye Season is still open in our neck of the woods and we are gearing up for a most memorable grand finally. The season runs until mid April, give us a shout if you are interested in a last ditch effort to ice some monster eyes!
This report is from a local who does a majority of our winter guiding.
Hey Chad
Ice and snow conditions are perfect for ice fishing with a quad runner now. We have had two weeks of above seasonal weather that has almost completely melted the snow. I was driving the quad in the bush last weekend breaking trail without much resistance from the 12” of soft snow.
You can still use a ski-doo on the lakes and on some packed ski-doo trails on land, but there are a lot of bare dirt patches on land to avoid. The bush roads can be accessed with a 4×4 truck now and will be totally snow free soon. The 801 road is down to bare gravel.
The ice conditions are great. I was walking around on Hilder Lake yesterday after work in my running shoes. No snow or slush to worry about. It is quite slippery, Ed and I have chains on our quad tires, and this improves the quad mobility a great deal on the ice.
There is still plenty of ice, 24” plus on most lakes. I am pretty sure that it will be safe until the end of Walleye season mid-April. The end of the ice Walleye season is going to be awesome this year, with the early thaw the fish will be stacked up around the river mouths long before the season closes. The Lake trout bite should pick up soon also, with the amount of melt water flowing it has to trigger their spring feeding frenzy. The creeks and rivers are starting to open up its time to practice extra caution around areas known to have a current.
I’ll send you another ice/snow/fish update on Monday and hopefully some big splake/Walleye pictures. We are going to start the day on Lucy and finish on a nice little Walleye lake on the way home.
Attached are a couple pictures with the little guy on our last trip to Pasha. Barrett checking the line on Goddard and the big 10 lb pike caught right in front of the cabin. (A big honking sucker minnow on the bottom of the lake took this giant)