ARE THERE ANY OPEN LAKES YET???????

[MUSKY18]

Ones around me are still hard water.........hope someone is starting to see some waves and not ice!!!!!!!

[b1gf1sh1]

i heard florida's got a few open... darn floridians.

[50inchpig]

Hoping to get the boat out on the river for spin next week, might be a little premature, but it sure has been nice the past few days. I'll have to check some of the metro lakes when I'm down there this weekend. 9 weeks until fishing season really starts anyway....

[porterhouse]

Not yet. Drove past on the North shore on White Bear this morning and the shore line looks pretty sloppy.

Brian

[Muskiefool]

Heres what I use every year, click around on it theres some cool stuff

http://climate.umn.edu/doc/ice_out/ice_out_status_08.htm

[Nick Kuhn]

Some small ponds are open. I actually went golfing Saturday. My brother did have a shot that would have normally been doomed to water skip across the ice to the other side. Of course my dad and I managed to hit the only pond on the course that was completely open.

The ice on Battle Creek looks like it's in pretty rough shape. Along 94 you can see there is already some open water where it runs in, along with the ever expanding aerator hole. Tanners is pretty solid though, but the ice looks rough as well. Rain appears to have really weakened it.

[JRedig]

St. Croix is open, that's all I need to know.

[Rebel9921]

Hey JRedig... How did your trip go??? Im sure Im not the only one waiting to hear about it...

[MUSKY18]

Rebel.......warm weather, sunshine, some rain to knock away the snow. Got that boat home yet??????????

[Rebel9921]

Bret... Im still waiting for that "special" phone call from the place... I was told within 2 weeks... so... Maybe this week... Im still waiting, man... waiting sucks LOL

[JRedig]

 Originally Posted By: Rebel9921

Hey JRedig... How did your trip go??? Im sure Im not the only one waiting to hear about it...

Hey Rebel-

It was good. Fantastic scenery down there. We caught 8-9 muskies in 4 days, nothing big though. Biggest was a 34, smallest was a 13. It was a good experience, new water, totally new fishing environments with the flooded timber and steeeeeeeeeeeep breaks. Definitely good for learning and mind opening.

Saw some big fish, made friends with the guy who won the PMTT. Pretty funny dude.

Got a new favorite bait, Manta. I LOVE fishing them. Super easy and just awesome to fish in timber. I love walking them around stuff, the fish seem to love them too.

Caught a monster bass too, 24 inches long, IIRC. Just a pig. And the most amazing part, it had MASSIVE wounds from something bigger trying to eat it, and they weren't exactly "old" scars. If my fishing partner ever gets off his ARSE and sends me the pics, i'll post them up.

In the end it was just awesome to get out and fish. Warm weather, muskies, sunshine. I thought it would make me more capable of being patient for the opener here, but it didn't. It's just that much harder now....

-jeff

[cjac]

Jeff,

Good times! Glad you had a good time! Anything beats this waiting period we're all stuck in!

Pending on weather, I'm going to pick up my ride this weekend from storage and see all that stuff I got last year that I forgot about! Looking for something to "scratch the itch"!

[Rebel9921]

Awesome trip for sure!!! Half of me wish I could go fishing now but half of me says no because I know it'll just make it harder for me for the MN season to come around... Hope you can get pics up for us to drool over...

[JRedig]

Oh and my only complaint with KY. Debris in the water. We were running wide open across the lake and had just gotten finished talking about how bad it would suck to hit a submerged log or something. (there is trash and timber EVERYWHERE)

About 30 seconds later, KABOOOOOOOOM then 1/2 second later WAHM at the back of the boat. Slow down, ok engine still works, boat still floating, no water coming in....yet.

Start looking around behind us, something floating behind us, mostly submerged. Turn around to see what it was. A fricken Rim and tire from a car floating in the MIDDLE of the lake. Hit the thing DEAD CENTER on the rim, put some huge scratches/dents in the rim and popped a pile of rivets out of the boat. Also pegged the engine and did some damage on the lower casing at the front of it, sucks bceause this was a new-to-me engine last year and was fine.

Now the boat leaks and the engine shifts funny. Darn it....!!!

Friendly reminder not to pollute anywhere you go for the sake of our environment and the sake of my boat!!!