ICE!!!

[Jarrod32]

Driving back home today, I had occasion to drive by some of the area lakes to check on the ice situation. A few notes: Buffalo Lakes are iced over; Kettle/Cattail Lakes are iced over; all of the small sloughs are iced over; Waubay Lake is not yet iced over; Hauge Slough was not only iced over, but featured three guys out fishing on the ice this evening...

[aquafang]

Thanks for the update. That may have been my brother- in- law. He said alot of dinks. Also ice was poor on west side. Froze over with an east wind.

Hopefully i can find something tomorrow.

[Jarrod32]

Hit one of the many small perch sloughs in the northeast part of the state this afternoon. Had about 8" of good ice; lots of ATVs were out on this particular body of water.

The action was fast and furious...two of us caught a buttload of perch, but only 10 were worthy of keeping. Well, we kept 10...only about 6 or 7 of those were actually worthy. Probably threw back 8 or 9 fish for every one kept. Still, a good day to be out on the ice and plenty of fish caught.

[PKretsch20]

How is the ice in the area now?

[carpshooterdeluxe]

How is the ice in the area now?

Depends greatly on the lake. No two are the same right now. Many areas are a consistent 8-10" of ice, some bays have 12" and some have no ice.

[Jarrod32]

Yeah...I haven't been out for a while, but reports are that some of the smaller sloughs still have pretty good ice on them. Some of the larger lakes...think Lynn and Bitter...had large areas of open water earlier this week. Use caution when/if heading out on the ice.

Though the forecast is calling for a cool down middle of next week...so we should get some firm, walkable ice by next weekend. But then it will get dangerous, because you won't be able to tell where there is a foot of ice or where this is just a few inches of new ice...

[aquafang]

Be safe and only walk on the ice right now. with all the areas of open water recently, if it does skim over you won't know how thick it is. with no snow on the ice pulling shacks and sleds is very easy right now with ice cleats. I would not even suggest a 4 wheeler unless you are very familiar to the body of water.

[Jarrod32]

Latest reports I'm hearing say that the recent cold weather has firmed the ice up nicely. People are driving on even the larger lakes, but I would suggest using caution yet...some of those lakes had open water as recently as a couple weeks ago, so you can go from very good ice to much thinner ice quickly. Make sure you know the body of water you are going out on, or exercise caution yet. Another week or so of this cold weather should get in all into pretty good shape, though...not a lot of snow on the ice this year.

Went up to one of the local rivers and was on about 8" of good ice, catching a nice batch of northerns here a week or so ago. Gonna try to get out on one of the eastern lakes this weekend...I will post a report when I get back.

[Jarrod32]

Got out on the north end of Lynn Lake today and fished perch. We had good action all day...we probably threw back two or three for every one we kept, and at the end of the day we had a decent batch of nice perch for the frying pan.

Jigging and deadstick presentations seemed equally effective...no clear advantage of one over the other. Good ice, too...about 18" of good, clear ice.