Good evening from the Quiet Lakes, sending you guys another report early as we will be leaving town tomorrow morning for hockey. A wonderful reprieve from the bitter cold we had experienced this past week with temps yesterday and today topping out in the mid 30s. It will be short lived however as we are under an “Extreme cold warning” from 6pm tomorrow until noon Tuesday. Highs top out at -4 Tuesday and the low Monday night is saying -23 with wind chills reaching -40 or better. With very little snow cover we will certainly be making more ice at those temps. We saw anywhere from 15-18″ today and plenty of snowmobiles racing across the lake. I would say it’s safe to take most vehicles out on all of the lakes in the area however, no ice is safe ice so be sure to check as you go or read all of the reports available to you. We have had some major ice heaves in the area with weather we have had lately. The fishing has been decent although this cold front may slow things down a bit.
Walleye–Walleye action has been good on tip-ups on both walleye suckers and shiners anywhere from 12-20 FOW on those weeds to basin, or rock to basin bottoms. Run those rigs 12-18″ off of bottom and fish in low light conditions. The last hour of the day seems best.
PIke–Pike can also be caught on tip-ups with both walleye suckers and shiners, however you want to set up for pike slightly shallower and closer to weed beds. Pike will generally stage up shallower and pick off any bait swimming in and out of weeds. I would run these rigs anywhere from 7-15 FOW as most deep weed edges are right around 12′ on our lakes.
Crappie–My goal was to catch a bunch of crappie today and have a nice fish fry this weekend…..well those dreams got quickly dashed as all I found were a bunch of little perch. I was fishing mostly near the basin in 10-14 FOW, but I think I should have pushed deeper. I can’t say for sure but my guess is crappie are anywhere from 20-30 FOW depending on the lake and structure. I was trying small jigs and spoons with both waxies and parts of crappie minnows to no avail.
Perch–As stated above, I did manage to find a big school of perch, catching 15-20 in the 5-7″ range and getting a handful above that. Those fish were found right around the 12′ mark on the deep weed edge and all of them were caught on a small tungsten jig tipped with waxies. I tried switching to a minnow to target the biggest perch of the school but they wanted nothing to do with that. Waxies were the ticket.
Bluegill–I have no report on bluegill as we did not find any in the weeds where we were fishing. I would have guessed we would have had a few strikes from gills in the weed bed we fished but nothing. We fished as shallow as 5 FOW and still nothing doing for bluegill. Small jigs and waxies or plastics in those areas should produce fish, but I have no clue as to why we didn’t see any. That’s fishing.
That is all I have for this week. Brutal cold looks to return and things will be quiet. Even the most hardcore anglers (myself included) don’t have any fun at -20!! Have a great weekend, stay warm and we will talk soon!
Greg