Good morning, its beginning to look a lot like……..WINTER! A few inches of fresh snow last night and colder temps have been making good ice on the lakes all week. I can’t speak for all of the lakes, but I have heard grumblings that LLL has anywhere from 6-8″ of ice across the entire lake. I drove down to one of the boat launches on Spider Lake and saw four wheeler tracks heading straight out onto the ice there, and had a customer in last night who told me he rode his four wheeler across Moose lake yesterday.
I want to emphasize safety here, and while I would still be cautious about bringing machines onto the lakes, I can say with pretty good certainty that most of the lakes are safely walkable to get to your fishing spots. With not much snow on the lakes, it makes walking out to spots that much easier! Don’t just take my word or any other people you see post or tell you its safe. IF you are heading out on the ice CHECK all of the ice you are planning on going across!!!
From the reports I am getting anglers are doing pretty well on tip-ups right now. Most are catching nice walleye and a few have had some good pike mixed in. Anglers are using pockets in weed beds or using the outside edges of the weeds adjacent to deeper water. Simply a treble hook rigged up with a shiner or a walleye sucker seem to be doing the trick for walleye and pike. I have had quite a few anglers buying crappie minnows, but haven’t heard much of success or locations of any panfish just yet.
There is not many more chances of snow from the forecasts I check, but cold weather looks to stick around so we should keep building up our ice sheets. I dont have any word on the lakes getting staked for snowmobiles, but I would think that could happen soon as long as we keep making ice. We still don’t have enough snow to use the trails, but all the little snows we get will add up.
Have a great weekend and we will talk soon!
Greg