Fishing Report

Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, we have had some cold nights so far to start the winter season!  I did see -11 Wednesday morning when I drove to the bait shop and had 12 this morning.  This weekend looks cold with a high of 15 today and 9 tomorrow, and both lows are showing negative single digits.  A warm up on Tuesday to 24 and 1-3 inches of snow overnight into Wednesday.  We did get just enough snow after the big snowstorm to slow the ice making down which is kind of a bummer, but we should have great ice by next weekend with the current forecast.

I am hearing of pretty consistent reports of ice that is around 3″ to 4″ thick close to the shorelines.  It sounds like anglers should NOT venture out much past shorelines right now as some lakes still have some open water (Round, LCO, Grindstone) and others have just skim ice out over the deep basins.  Most anglers are using tip-ups and fishing shallow sandy or rocky shorelines in hopes for some early ice walleye right now.  Walleye suckers or shiners rigged under the tip-up are the way to go for walleye and pike in the shallows.  It is still too early to get out for basin crappie or perch, but shallow weeds may hold some panfish as well. Small jigs and waxies/minnows or small jigging spoons can be great choices for early ice panfish.  Anglers should ALWAYS CHECK ICE as they venture out as no ice is safe ice, especially this time of year.  

That is all I have for this week’s report.  We are getting there but it will take another week or two before we really see any good ice action.  Have a great weekend and we will talk soon!

Greg

Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, I think after this past week’s snow, we can probably call the end of the open water season for 2025.  There may be a little bit of open water, but landings are going to be almost impossible to get in and out of, and it looks to get COLD for the coming week.  I am seeing temps mostly in the teens and mostly single digit lows with a random -8 in there for Wednesday night.  To say we should start making ice is an understatement!!  Since we do not really have safe ice to report of (I’m sure there is some, I just have not heard of any) I figure it’s a good time to recap the open water season.

We finished the 2025 open water season with some good numbers of all species being caught!  A number of good walleye over the slot of 24″ were caught as well as a bunch in that 15-20″ keeper range were caught on the area lakes.  Panfishing was good as fish were plentiful this season although we do not have great sizes on the local lakes. It seems like the Chippewa Flowage held some of the biggest panfish (crappie in particular) in the area.  We ended up filling up 3-1/2 musky charts with the largest fish coming in at 49″ on Lost Land Lake.  At 35 fish per board, we had about 125 fish posted and many more caught that were not put up on the board.  Pretty good numbers given we had a very warm summer and the fishing being fair I would say.   There were lots of 40″+ fish out of the area lakes and a few mid to upper 40″ taken out of Moose, Teal, Spider, and of course Lost Land.  Northern pike were caught in pretty typical numbers and sizes this past year, as were largemouth bass.  Smallies really took off with good numbers of fish and great sizes on all of the area lakes.  It’s never too late to start booking trips or thinking about next year’s open water season!!

Sorry for not much of a report on actual fishing but with this week’s temps I don’t think an ice report is too far off!!  It appears we may see more snow tonight as they are forecasting another 1-3″ tonight. Have a great weekend and we will talk soon.

Greg