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X-Mas weekend report


Muskiemanzan13

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On Christmas day I packed my things and two of my buddies came over in preparation for a weekend at the big pond. One of them has a cabin in cove bay so that's where we'd be staying. We'd planned to leave the cities around 3:45am-4:00am but excitement got the best of us and we left at 1:30am. We got to the lake and started to make our way on to the ice at around 3:00am. We went to the public access in Cove Bay and it was pitch black and snowing but after reading many of the reports in ice conditions we decided we'd use caution and drive out in our 2005 Chevy Impala. Shining a spot light in front of us and drilling test holes every 30-40 yards we made it all the way out to King's hump and ran into only one pressure ridge that was about a mile and a half out. We measured and had 15"-18" of ice all the way out.

We set up on King's in 16 FOW and fished until 8:30am then moved out to deeper water to target jumbos but with only 3''-5'' perch to show, we went into Cove bay and tip up fished for pike. We had 6 tip ups in 8-10 FOW in the bay and only one flag in 4 hours. Might I add there was probably 100+ spear houses in the bay alone. We pulled our lines and went out and found a nice break from 10FOW to 22FOW in about 20 yards. We set up in 16FOW and immediately (about 3:30pm) one of my friends hooked up with a walleye in the mid 20's but lost her at the hole. My other friend landed a 23" walleye during prime time then we packed it up for the night. Saturday morning we went out to that same spot and my fried Blake caught 4 walleyes in 2 hours measuring 14 1/2", 18 1/2", 23", and a chunky 24". We tried tip ups again in the bay with nothing to show. The clouds broke and the temps plummeted around noon on Saturday. We returned to our spot to try for 'eyes again with nothing to show. The next morning we decided to fish out a little deeper in 19FOW. We fished walleye all day and nothing until around noon when we left our portable to hole hop for about a half hour and I returned to deadstick pole being totally gone. Something hit it and pulled the whole works down the hole. My bale was open and everything. So I set up a different pole with a bobber and kept fishin'. About 3-4 hours later at 4:00pm my buddy blake left the portable so I fished alone. All of a sudden his bobber went down so I grabbed his pole and set the hook and it felt very strange. It just felt like dead weight. So I reeled it up to find no fish on the jig but it was the frickin blue braided line of my pole that I lost a few hours before. I grabbed on end of the line and pulled it up to find my pole and all of the line was gone off of the spool except for the knot I tied when I put that line on that reel. I was really excited to have my pole back so I started reeling the line in and all of a sudden the pole bent in half. Big massive headshakes and such. I could feel that it was a big fish on there. I called for my friend to come over so he did and when he opened the door to me fighting the fish on the pole I lost he was shocked. I finally got to the bobber stop and then the fish was realy giving me a work out. Once I saw the fish I about crapped myself. Got it up the hole to find that my jig was right in the corner of its mouth and that it was an extremely fat 27" walleye. Took a few pics and let her swim. Right after that I got my personal 2-fish limit of 'eyes.

They wanted golds and silvers with glow colors for the first two days when they were aggressive then the cold front rolled through and they only wanted deadsticks. Also someone dumped their truck into a pressure ridge near Mazominee point. Be careful and good luck. full-43080-52041-img_4256.jpg

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Great report, thanks for sharing! I heard about the dodge that went in, I thought it went all the way in! After the recovery crew got that out, they were on the east side where I watched them in action! Quite the story about your pole!

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That area has swallowed as many vehicles as any on the lake the last 20 years. I had the same thing happen with a old school jiggle stick 25 years ago out on 7 mile fishing Jumbo's. We weren't back from buying a replacement stick and I caught the perch 10 minutes later. Then even funnier we were fishing in a friends shack and they get there 30 mins later and catch the Liberty Beach contest winner.

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Nice report. Sounds fun.

An unattended rod is illegal. Catching a fish on your buddies rod is too, depending on the situation. Just a heads up so Mr Green Jeans don't get ya.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
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