Fishing Report

Good evening from the Quiet Lakes, hockey tomorrow so going to get you the report early!  We did not end up with nearly as much snow as originally forecasted.  I think we may have about 2-3″  on the ground here.  I saw a few snowmobile tracks along the trail by our house and watched a guy go straight across the lake today while I was out ice fishing.  I did hear a group of people staked Lost Land Lake for the snowmobile trail which is a good sign, however I do not believe we got enough snow to get the groomers out and the trails have to be thin for anyone looking to ride right now.  I have also heard that most lakes are safe right now, Moose Lake has 10 inches of ice and most of the Chippewa Flowage is around 8″.  A big warm up looks to happen next week with multiple days in the upper 30s and some forecasted rain for next Friday…..ugh……

On a better note, all of the ice we checked today was between 6-8″ of solid black ice and the lakes were making some noise the entire time we were out there.  At the current temp of -1 that can only mean we were making more ice as the high today never got out of the teens!  We found a whole bunch of perch schooled up in 15 FOW although they were all small.  Still fun to catch and mostly on a small tungsten jig and soft plastic.  We were fortunate enough to get a decent pike and a few smaller walleye on tip ups rigged with sucker minnows in anywhere from 12-20 FOW close to shallow water with weeds.  We did not find any crappie although I have heard some anglers doing well for them on the Chip and on lakes with a little bit deeper basins.  Look for those fish in 15-25 FOW and use jigs and plastics or minnows.  

That is all I have for this week’s report.  Pretty easy fishing right now as fish seem to be where anglers should expect them and they seem to be biting at that twilight/dusk time when you would expect as well.  Have a great weekend and we will talk soon!

Greg

Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, warmer temps this weekend will give us some relief from the brutal cold we had from the past few days.  It looks like we have some slight chances of snow off and on over the week, with temps up and down as well.   We are supposed to get a little bit of snow today, with some light glazing of ice also and we are currently under a Winter Weather Advisory from that.  Ice reports are all over the place still, with many smaller/mediums lakes having safe ice in most areas. I have herad reports of anywhere from 5-7″ on those lakes.  Larger, deeper lakes were still mostly open from what I was hearing, although they may have iced over with the cold weather of last week.  Even if they did, on these lakes (Round, LCO, Grindstone) be sure to check ice frequently as it most likely will vary greatly on thickness across the lake. 

There is not a whole to report on the early season ice bite yet, as most anglers were not out dealing with sub zero temps last week.  Most anglers are still fishing tip ups rigged with sucker minnows in fairly shallow water.  Jigging bigger spoons or baits are producing walleye and small pike right now as well.  Panfish can be caught using small jigs tipped with waxies, mostly in and around shallow weeds right now until we can get out into the basins and target crappie.  

Have a great weekend and we will talk soon!

Greg