Buffalo Bay ice travel

[minneman]

Is truck travel possible on the bay so far this year?

could one drive from Buffalo Pt to Stony or Birch Pt, or the sand bar? Are Breakers in the way etc? or is there already too much snow?

[Jim W]

All I am aware of is there is little snow on the bay as of a week ago.

When ya heading up?

[minneman]

Thanks Jim, Ive heard the same, was more concerned about the breakers and traveling north from the marina by truck. Id also be interested in how getting on the lake at Birch pt would be and the breaker situation on the north end?

comming up the 24th and again 14-18 march.

[Jim W]

Historically,

North travel isn't impeded and a "road" generally carves North of the major breaks.

Birch point is an easy 45 minute extra drive, but it can drop you closer to the Reed River.

I'll be up the the 17th of March...where ya staying?

e-mail me if ya wish......

[email protected]

[MN Mike]

minneman,

We've been going out of Birch all season so far. Fishing on the bar, pretty decent travel out there, one big breaker just before you get to the bar, sometimes its fine and you can get thru other times it might be so so, the breaker has been pretty active.

Couldn't tell you about points north or south of the landing at Birch but visually, it doesn't look too bad. There are big patchs of rough ice out there.

That drive around does suck, doesn't seem like it would take that long but it does. When we stay at the marina, we either bring sleds mostly or even 4 wheelers if the travel allows it, then it's only about a 10 minute drive or so across the lake depending on where you are going.

We'll be up there a few more times including this weekend, I might have a better report by then.

Mike

[Jim W]

Mike,

How'd ya do eh?

What's ice like right now?

In thepast I have been able to drive around from the Marina. A bit of a drive, but not too bad.

[MN Mike]

Jim,

We couldn't take it anymore, left on Friday and headed up there for 2 days.

When we got there, action was great from the get go, marked fish as soon as we put the Marcums down, threw gold / maroon Hawger Spoons at them tipped with dead minnow heads, about mid afternoon the bite changed to a ' daredevil ' style spoon, I had bought a Capt. Micks at Gander and that worked well, my cousin had a blue Weasle and he was doing well with that too, bite stopped at 5 p.m. or so and we were 5 Walleye short of our limit for 4 guys ( 24 ) and we still had Sat. to fish yet so we were being selective on what we were keeping, WELL, I fell for that again !!!!

Saturday's bite was way slow compared to Friday, earlier seemed better for Walleye, we only kept 1 walleye for Sat. threw back 2 smaller keepers that we should have kept but we figured the big bite was going to be there at 3 again. WRONG !!! We tried everything in the aresonal, size, shape, color, live minnow, dead minnow and just couldn't get them to trigger.

Pike were good both days, didn't keep exact track of the fish but probably had 10 or 12 fish between 36" - 40" with a few smaller ones too.

All in all, it was another good trip, 5 jumbo perch, 20 walleye and 6 pike, 4 of those were nice. Couldn't tell you how many small walleye we threw back, it was a bunch.

That was the last weekend for augers without extensions for us, next time they'll need to be on.

Ice travel was good out of Birch, it looks like most people were heading out to the sandbar, there looked to be some possibly down by Gould but I couldn't tell you if it was a vehicle or something else, portables were scattered all over. There are some breakers to contend with and where people are getting thru them, it's getting snowed in and a little deeper everytime the snow blows it back in again. Travel is rough, snow from early in the season is hard as a rock so it bounces you around a bit in a pickup.

Mike

[Jim W]

Thanks for the report! Sounds like you had a good time.

We've had some jumbo and walleye luck at Gould's in the past. How far out to Stony Point have people been? Anyone near the border?

Does it appear folks are getting from the Marina out and around "alright"?

Thanks again for the good feedback!

[MN Mike]

I can't speak for what is happening from the Marina, haven't been out from there this year, usually we have been but we cancelled out Superbowl weekend trip on account of the cold weather. Might have to give them a call at the resort ( not the Marina ), they might have some info for you. Looks to me like there were some vehicles out further south, weather or not they came from the north I don't know.

Haven't seen many people by Stoney, I've got a spot over that way I usually go to but the fishing has been good enough where we have been at that I haven't felt the need to move, talked to some guys not far from there and they said they hadn't even marked any fish but they were a little ways off of my waypoint.

Mike

[Jim W]

Any word on current ice travel? Notice some snow on and off....hoping things stay decent enough for truck travel.

Jim

[Paul Waldowski]

Bump!

Looking for an update after the recent snowfalls

[minneman]

Ditto!

I was at sandy shores area over the weekend and we had aprox 14" there. Im hoping it wasnt as heavy on the west side...?

[MN Mike]

Sounds like they got thier fair share up on Buffalo too, Dad had talked to Lenord @ Silver Birch, didn't sound like anyone has ventured out with pickups for the last few days. He was up last week at this time and it was getting a little mean to get on the lake and the breakers you had to hit with some speed to get thru the snow, the wind had blown them in pretty good. Now with the new storm on the way and the winds that they had been talking about, I would imagine it will be sleds only for a bit until it warms up again.

I guess some guys had come up from the Marina on sleds last week, went over a breaker and fell right in the water on the other side, they still went fishing but were pretty wet I guess.

Might have to head up this weekend after the storm and make sure the house isn't flooding, I lifted it a week and a half ago so it should be good.

Mike

[Hemlock]

With the last two dumps here in Kenora (4" and 7"), there isn't anymore free wheeling in the pickup. Ice road or snowmobile travel only. However, I did see a Durango going through some amazing stuff the other day...stuff that my pickup wouldn't of made it through.

[minneman]

thanks guys! sleds it is then.

[MN Mike]

I'll report back on Sunday, we are heading up tomorrow for a few days and staying at the Marina.

Sounds like there is some flooding going on, we have atleast 1 house to lift so it won't be all fishing tomorrow.

Mike

[Jim W]

All right...I can't take it any more.lol

What's the good word Mike? Hopefully coming up next week..need an ice travel report please.

Thanks more than much!

Jim W

[MN Mike]

Jim,

We ended up spending more time on the lake today than we had figured, had some action that didn't quit and it was just a nice warm day to be outside and on the ice, even though it was overcast.

You run into a ice ridge right at the beach as soon as you hit the ice, then another big breaker about 1 mile out, that runs northwest to southeast.

I think I saw 1 pickup track leave the marina and head east, nothing that I saw was heading in any other direction, the snow had settled some but with cooler temps coming in for the mid to later part of this week, that snow is going to be hard, don't really know what that will do for lake travel with a pickup. There were a few pickups on the ice that came from Birch Pt. I didn't look to see if there was anything over by Reed or not, I don't think anyone was out wandering too much with the snow being a pretty good pull on the truck still. You would run into some deep pockets of snow and other areas there was only a couple inches on the ice. If it was going to stay warm like the last couple days, the snow wouldn't have been too much of a factor but the forcast looks like it might cool down and bring in some snow.

We used sleds all weekend, once we got past the big breaker about 1 mile out, it was pretty smooth sailing to where we fished up north. We came back south and run into rought ice patchs and breakers again that we didn't see on the other trail. So it's kind of random out there.

If you call the marina, they are open, there should be some reports this week, there were quite a few people scattered all over the bay this weekend.

I think that if I was going up there this coming weekend, I would still plan on a sled or maybe even a 4 wheeler, those breakers are the wildcard depending on where you are going.

Mike

[Jim W]

Thanks for the info Mike.

send me an e-mail if you get the chance

[email protected]

[minneman]

thanks for the report mike!!

you have mail Jim.