Northern WI First Ice Report

[Jim Hudson]

Finally, got to put some lines down in my own ice! Have been traveling quite a bit and seeing some different water the past month, but, so nice to come back home to familar water.

Our inland lakes are frozen up pretty good, still early ice though. Treading on 3 to 6 inches, depending on the lakes you are fishing. So, caution is still needed, especially on the larger water. Chequamegon Bay is iced in on the Ashland shorefront, but, most of the bay still has open water yet. And after yesterdays storm, I am afraid we probably lost some ice as well. Will find out more tomorrow.

Fishing wise, we have been concentraiting on walleye. Here, in our area, most of our walleye water is very gin clear, so catching can be tough, especially by jigging approaches. Our main method is by tip-up fishing and other forms of set-lines. Great way to get a group of friends on the ice and have a good time. But, its just not a game of pop a hole and set a flag. This is still a technique you have to have a game plan for and set your sets on-top of prime real estate. We find turns, cups and points along weed edges, rock to sand or much transitions, cribs and sand grass fields to be consistant in catching fish.

Normally, our set-ups consist of Beaver Dam tip-ups, either the old Rail Style or now the new Round design. These have the smoothest spools of any tip-ups on the market. And that smooth spooling action is needed for walleyes, because if there is any hint of hesitation when they pull line, they will almost always drop the bait.

Anyhow, its a fun way to fish and it always get your heart thumping when you see that flag pop and the spool spinning ever so slowly from a walleye taking the bait. Fun stuff.

[Pete Maina]

Very nice Jim. Of course, I love the Cheese Looks like similar to my Lake of the Woods pattern.

[Tod Todd]

Nice pic's and yes the block O cheese is cool

[Lunker Luke]

Nice job Boy's.

[aaron otto]

Cheese Tip-Up is hilarious.

[PurpleFloyd1529315463]

Nice.