Fishing Report

Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, it looks like we have another round of significant snow tomorrow through tomorrow night.  It looks like anywhere from 3-5″ during the day and another 1-3″ tomorrow night.  Next week looks to bring a big warm up with temps in the mid to upper 30s everyday and a wintry mix on Tuesday that will probably make a mess of everything.  The heavy snow we received last week has not hurt the ice, however it did create a layer of slush in between the snow and ice.  The ice base on most lakes is at least 10″ and anywhere the snowmobile trails are, travel should be excellent.  Fishing has slowed down a little bit with that snowstorm we got, and not sure what tomorrow’s storm will bring but generally before a front, and a few days after can be great fishing.  

Northern pike–Pike should be set up in and around shallow weeds, whether that be off of points, on top of reefs, or just big weed beds.  Now that we have a lot of snow cover on the lakes the weeds will start to brown.  If you can still find green weeds, those are an excellent starting point.  Set tip-ups on weed edges both shallow and deep and use either sucker minnows or shiners.  Pike will aggressively eat bigger spoons jigged in those areas as well.

Walleye–The walleye bite has slowed down a little bit, but anglers should target deeper rocky points or reefs or sharp breaking shorelines.  Both tip-ups and jigging with spoons in these areas can be productive especially around dawn and dusk.  If using tip-ups, rig them with suckers or shiners and run them anywhere from 1-2′ off of bottom.  Jigging can call fish from a long distance and most anglers start low in the water column and work fish up.  

LMB/SMB–I have not heard of any kind of bass bite for either species, however anglers may find success for largemouth fishing with tip-ups and minnows in and around shallower weeds and in the same areas as pike.  Anglers may find smallies in some of the same areas as walleye, although they seem to be pretty nomadic and not caught very often through the ice.

Crappie/Perch–Crappie and perch should be roaming basins right now and anglers have had some luck using small spoons or jig/plastic or minnow combos.  From what I have been hearing, anglers are finding luck anywhere from 15-25 FOW for crappie and perch right now.

Bluegill–Not a whole lot to report on a good bluegill bite, however gills should still be more related to shallow structure vs. a basin bite.  Shallow structure can be weeds, timber, shallow rocks and shoreline breaks.  Smaller jigs tipped with waxies or plastics are all anglers need to ice nice gills.

That is all I have for this week’s report.  Have a great weekend and we will talk soon.

Greg

Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, we hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying this slightly warmer weather while it lasts! The little ice storm we received Christmas night into yesterday sure made a mess of things and this morning did not seem much better. Lots of moisture in the air that froze to the roads. Tomorrow looks to bring a winter storm and I am seeing anywhere from 5-8″ of snow tomorrow through Monday. Looks like we are going to have some NW winds anywhere from 15-25 mph with gusts up to 35-40 mph which would support us getting more snow than not. The rest of the end of the year looks to be COLD in the Northwoods, with highs in the teens and lows in the single digits all week.

Ice conditions are favorable andI think all but the big lakes are staked for snowmobiles. I was out on Clear Lake yesterday on the Spider chain and we saw 11″ of ice everywhere we drilled. We only got out for a couple of hours and unfortunately we got skunked. We had tip-ups set on the deep edge that dropped off into 20+ FOW, although some folks close to us had a few flags go off in shallow water and it sounded like they saw some small pike on their setups. A friend of mine got a few eater walleye right at dark and if I had to guess he was set up on a steep breaking shoreline adjacent to deep water. For walleye set tip-ups in 10-15 FOW and rig a walleye sucker or shiner underneath it. For pike it is best to set up shallower near weeds or on top of reefs, all while using the same baits to catch aggressive pike. We looked for some panfish in and around the weed edges, but had no luck. If I was a better fisherman something would have clicked and I would have checked the basin to look for schools of crappie or perch, but I am not a very good fisherman so that did not happen! Looking back crappie and perch are most likely out in the basins and using slightly bigger spoons tipped with plastics or waxies are a good choice. Some anglers are going away from plastics and live bait for panfish all together and just using spoons with small blades for some extra flash.

That is all I have for this week’s report. It’s looking like a pretty wild weather week to close out the year, but it is pretty fitting as our weather for the entire year was very unpredictable and all over the place! Have a great weekend, Happy New Year and we will talk soon!

Greg