After all of the snow storms that we have been experiencing was pleasantly surprised to find the walking conditions very favorable. There is a good layer of compacted snow with 2 separate layers of slush pockets underneath until you hit the 6-8 inches of clean ice. Power augers are the way to go as the anglers that were hand drilling were having a tough time with the slush pockets.
Have fished this lake numerous times during the open water seasons but have never ventured out onto the ice. This lake has a variety of fish species as that is what we were looking for as we weren’t to concerned about which ones but as long as one of them was going to bite, that was going to make our day.
The primary area that we fished was a point that came out with shallow coves that went back behind on each side. The front of the point would drop off into deep water fairly fast and we were working all the different aspects of the shallow areas into the deeper waters.
The shallower waters would have small pickerel on that were caught on tipups and for jigging there were only small perch caught. For the deep water areas we were fishing out to 20 feet deep and the tipups weren’t doing anything but jigging produced many crappies and sunfish.
Working the deeper waters with electronics proved very successful and allowed you to see if you were fishing a productive hole or not as many holes had no activity in them. The jigs of choice were T.H.E. Jig from CKOutdoors and also the “Slug Bug” from Northland Tackles “Bro’s Bug Collection”.
All in all it was a good day to be out on the ice and enjoying some time with my son again as he has been coming a long ways year after year. With the warming trends coming shortly, trips need to be made to the ice as our ice season doesn’t last long once the sun starts getting much warmer.
