Montan Ice fishing conditions

[mjhowe]

Things are looking up folks! I may be talking to myself here but oh well........

Fished Lower Stillwater Lake on Friday the 31st and did pretty good on the perch. My partner caught several jumbos with a couple in the 12-13" range. The larger perch were digesting minnows when they met their fate. I caught 2 pike in the 3# range, and we were into fish all day. Ice is 7-8" thick.

Fished Blanchard Lake Sat evening and it was dead from 430 to about 830. As we were leaving, a fellow said the bite was not starting until about 9 and going to midnight. The perch bite is going pretty good from about 3 pm till dark if you can find where the fish are!

The ice on Blanchard is still spotty, we encountered open water on the south east shore where a spring is still coming thru. Ice is about 4-5" thick.

Bitteroot is starting to make ice and should be fishable in the shallowewr bays by the end of this week. Lake Mary Ronan was open as of early last week but HAS to be making ice by now.

The Sunriser Lions derby on Smith Lake is this Sat the 8th. Grab the kids and head on out, its 6 bucks for the whole family!!! They have been killing the perch on Smith for the last 2 weeks.

Good fishing and be careful, the ice is still very iffy on most lakes

[Stratosman]

Judging by all the responses you must have all the lakes to yourself out there!

[teamlatenight]

As of yesterday was there is 4-5 inches of ice on Dog/Rainbow 2-3 inches on South Crow res. 5-inches on Kicking horse res... East Bay of Flathead lake was still to thin...I also have not heard about any good ice on Lake Mary Ronan yet but last night was below zero!! I will have a better fishing report soon...

[mjhowe]

Thanks for the report Team Late Night, and welcome to the forum!!! I had also heard that LMR was just not coming along like it should be, hopefully that cold snap helped, but now with all this snow, I hope it doesnt weigh it down and cover it back over with water. Might not EVER get good if thats the case and with 2 derbies in the next 30 days or so that would be bad.

Keep us posted, I know there are more readers than posters here so dont get discouraged. I leave next Thursday for 10 days of fishing in MN and ND, cant wait!!!

[teamlatenight]

Fishing was awful on kicking horse 1 small bass 0 perch Dog lake has 5inches of ice but is slushy on the top Lone pine reservoirs are very low 5-pike biggest 28inches...anyone heard anything about Lake Mary Ronan??