Ice report

[Guest]

Drove by some of the lakes south of Watertown, Lake Poinsette was about 3/4 open, lake Albert was iced over, looked like frozen snow, there was a guy driving a 4 weehler about 50 yards out though. The sloughs along hwy 81 have 3-4 inches of ice and a fair amount of people fishing. There is still some ice that is just skim in the bigger water. Going to try 81 sloughs tommorow.

[Guest]

Sounds like fun, wish i could do the same, not easy to get in as much fishing as you want when you have to go to school every day and then work.

[slabberknocker]

Up North,
Did you get out on the 81 sloughs? Heard of any action? Thanks for any info you could give me.

[Guest]

I made it out to 81 sloughs, fished east side of the hwy, south of the 2nd road. The main part was still open, but a the bay was frozen over good.Caught about 20 perch in about 2 hrs. NO size to them at all them.

[Guest]

We fished this weekend near Webster and the fishing was SLOW! The ice was pretty thin or non-existant on the bigger/deeper lakes. Most of the shallow lakes and sloughs seemed to have pretty good ice. As for the fishing, a few small perch but overall pretty slow.ScottS

[Guest]

fished 81 sloughs again this afternoon, fished a little deeper and caught about 40, the best presentation was to jig, and keep one finger one the line, they bit very light, but sometimes as fast as you dropped it down. The jig and minnow under the bobber worked well too. We lost and gained ice in the last week, there was about 5 inches today, but places with open water lost ice due to wind ect. the open spots are bigger.

[Guest]

Fished again this morning, caught 25 or so little one in a half hour, and got sick of the wind. We lost a little ice overnight, there is about a half inch of water ontop of the ice now. The wind is going to take a lot of ice out in the next couple days, more open water is appearing.

[Guest]

So, how did the ice do this weekend. I hope there is some left!! I am going to be out fishing this weekend. Someone tell me you still have good ice. How about some fishing reports?ScottS

[slabberknocker]

I too will be up there this Sat. the 22nd. Any size to the perch along 81? Are u using waxies only or are they taking small minnows? LAst question, how har north of Madison are the sloughs? I have not been up hat way in probably 7-8 years and cant remember exactly how far. I have a Christmas dinner that night I want to know how long I can fish. Thanks

[Guest]

I will probably be going out this afternoon to fish for the last time before christmas break. I know lake Sinai is open yet, and the majority of twin lake/west side of 81 sloughs. Brush lake right along the south side of US 14 was frozen over, and people were fishing on it, no reports though. Lake Goldsmith (1mile N, 1.5 mile West of Volga) had people fishing on it, the ice looked like it was very slushy though. 81 sloughs start basically at the junction of 14 (2 miles south of Arlington) and 81, and run along side the Hwy for about 3-4 miles.

[Guest]

Got out for about an hour and a half on 81 sloughs, the ice faired a lot better than I thought. There is 5 inches, the top 1-2 is honeycombed a bit, but the rest is good. There is still a lot of open water in this system. If this ice made it through the past weekend it should still be there the following weekend. I got about 10 small perch, the bite was real slow. There are some nicer ones that I have seen come out of there this year, a couple 2lbs and a pound. The majority of the ones that you will catch here will be on the small side, but usually good action. It seems to be an all too common thing with the perch sloughs in the Dakotas, as soon as the perch get to be decent eating size, there is a few weeks of good fishing, then it seems like they get fished out, the next 2-3 years are small, then another run of the big ones. 81 sloughs do get a lot of pressure.