Good morning from the Quiet Lakes, it looks like we got maybe an inch and a half of snow overnight, which actually may help with the slick roads as it will cover the ice up a little bit. This past week we saw some above freezing temps and some rain on Thursday which made a mess of roads and driveways but actually may have helped the ice a bit! It knocked down some of the insulating snow and then froze hard as we dropped into negative temps overnight and had a high well below freezing yesterday. It sounds like the lakes that had decent ice already gained a couple of inches from the rain and freeze. The Spider chain is varying in ice depth and I have heard reports of anywhere from 5-8″. I know that LLL got staked for the snowmobile trail yesterday, as did the Tiger Cat flowage so that tells me those bodies of water have around 8″ on them as well. It sounds like the bigger lakes (Round, LCO, Grindstone) and parts of the Chip are not ready and are not staked yet. We are supposed to see another warm up around Christmas and potential rain, but I don’t think it will be significant enough to affect the ice.
If anglers are venturing out onto bigger water, just use common sense and check ice as you go. Even on smaller lakes that seem safe, since we have had some temperature swings and rain, it would be a good idea to check ice as you go. NO fish is worth falling through the ice! Most anglers have stayed fairly close to shorelines and have been finding fish on shallower structure such as weed beds, rocky points, and reefs or shorelines with steep breaks. Tip-ups rigged with walleye suckers or shiners in anywhere from 6-15 FOW around these structures are good places to start for walleye, pike, bass, and even musky. Panfish may be out in basins, in which case dropping jigs or spoons down to their level with waxies, or minnows is a great choice. These same choices work for fish in weeds as well, and working edges is key.
That is all I have for a report for this week. Still not a lot of anglers out fishing, hopefully that changes now that lakes are getting safer, and there is more people up for the holidays! We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and we will talk soon.
Greg