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Did you have any problems getting around on the ice? I've heard of some slush issues on the smaller waters. Heading back up to our place Wed or Thur of next week & hoping to get out a few times. Sounds like you had a great weekend. Which was best  for you the basin type areas or more up on the flats?

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We were on foot, but it was pretty easy getting around, we didn't find a whole lot of slush....all the fish were in the basins....Red tungsten jig with waxies was the best bait...

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Congrats , Those are some very nice fish !!!!! How was the bite , aggressive or lite ?

Thanks Mike

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The crappies were very finnicky we had at least 5 fish on the Marcum the whole time Sunday and only got 8 to go...the gills on the other lake were super aggressive...The gfs strategy, drop it to the bottom turn the handle twice, fish on lol...

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Glad you had a good trip. It's a beautiful area that I've been lucky enough to fish since i was 8 or 9 years old. When we were up, most of my fish came on a deadstick & usually within 2-3 ft of bottom. When the crappies were real finicky sometimes I would drop it to the bottom & slowly lift it just off bottom, fish on. Pink/glow pink, Orange/glow orange, & firetiger with waxie seemed to work best for us last trip.

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Ya it's definitely a great area, its crazy how many lakes are in the area...Awesome area for finding them unfished hidden gem lakes, my favorite...

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders
On 2/23/2016 at 7:32 AM, DLD24 said:

The crappies were very finnicky we had at least 5 fish on the Marcum the whole time Sunday and only got 8 to go...the gills on the other lake were super aggressive...The gfs strategy, drop it to the bottom turn the handle twice, fish on lol...

Tell her thanks for the tip! I had a heck of a time last weekend trying to bring them up to the lure. This weekend I will try the bottom-up two twice technic!  :)

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That's the reason why they advertise the county as " the county of a thousand lakes" sometimes. The recently opened bait shop in Cohassett goes by Thousand Lakes as well. The area from Talmoon to Big Fork & then over to Squaw Lake is full of those off the beaten track / unfished hidden gems your talking about.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders
52 minutes ago, gunner55 said:

That's the reason why they advertise the county as " the county of a thousand lakes" sometimes. The recently opened bait shop in Cohassett goes by Thousand Lakes as well. The area from Talmoon to Big Fork & then over to Squaw Lake is full of those off the beaten track / unfished hidden gems your talking about.

The sad thing is I use to snowmobile the craap out of the Big Fork-Squaw Lake area and never thought about bring a GPS to mark some of them!  :(

Edited by leech~~
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Recently looked at a map of the groomed trails in the area & was surprised there were so many. leech, the lakes are still there, it's just that the last 2-3 maybe 4 years there hasn't been a lot of snow. Been up there a lot more the last couple of winters & it seems that over around Hwy 6 ( Big Jessie/Talmoon/ Big Fork) then over to Squaw lake sees more sleds IMO.

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On ‎2‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 10:04 AM, leech~~ said:

The sad thing is I use to snowmobile the craap out of the Big Fork-Squaw Lake area and never thought about bring a GPS to mark some of them!  :(

ewe..................... we may have crossed paths on more then one occasion!!!!!!!!!!!:P suppose you frequented the hill in squaw lake, or hayslips in talmoon or richies in marcel then.........just to name  a few!!!!!!!! maybe even Riley's!!!!!!:D

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1 hour ago, smurfy said:

ewe..................... we may have crossed paths on more then one occasion!!!!!!!!!!!:P suppose you frequented the hill in squaw lake, or hayslips in talmoon or richies in marcel then.........just to name  a few!!!!!!!! maybe even Riley's!!!!!!:D

Bahahaha you know it. Everyone of them!  Miss Richies Caribou burgers! :)

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My cabin is a mile from Marcell so I have spent many days in Richies, Hayslips and the Timber Wolf. Still do in fact. Those burgers were a pound of beef with fries. The younger guys would order them but I never did it. Did tons of snowmobiling up there, now all my buddies got old and sold there sleds so I have no one left to go with. I loved the circle L and circle T the most. And through the park also. The Suomi was to many curves for my liking. The good old days. Now it's just fishing and hunting. Heading up two more trips before the ice is out. Have to be in the next two weeks for sure as there isn't a whole lot of ice on some of my favorite smaller lakes.

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1 hour ago, merc said:

My cabin is a mile from Marcell so I have spent many days in Richies, Hayslips and the Timber Wolf. Still do in fact. Those burgers were a pound of beef with fries. The younger guys would order them but I never did it. Did tons of snowmobiling up there, now all my buddies got old and sold there sleds so I have no one left to go with. I loved the circle L and circle T the most. And through the park also. The Suomi was to many curves for my liking. The good old days. Now it's just fishing and hunting. Heading up two more trips before the ice is out. Have to be in the next two weeks for sure as there isn't a whole lot of ice on some of my favorite smaller lakes.

Well the season is over for the year and I just covered mine up today. Keep me in mind next winter and PM me f you want to ride around up there. I don't mind chugging through the woods to see some wild life as much as Bar A to Bar B riding of my past. My buddy has a cabin up by Dora Lake not on it but near and his Dad who has now passed away had a very nice place, the old school house on School House lake that has now burned down to the ground. :( Good luck fishing.

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No Hayslips or Timberwolf for me ....... so far. It's hard to tell if/when the Timberwolf is even open.Tim S. at Bowstring Store told us,when we were up in January, that the owner of Riley's had passed away recently. Plenty of Riley's, The Hill, even Richies back when some of my buddies would come up. Not so much anymore.

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2 hours ago, leech~~ said:

Well the season is over for the year and I just covered mine up today. Keep me in mind next winter and PM me f you want to ride around up there. I don't mind chugging through the woods to see some wild life as much as Bar A to Bar B riding of my past. My buddy has a cabin up by Dora Lake not on it but near and his Dad who has now passed away had a very nice place, the old school house on School House lake that has now burned down to the ground. :( Good luck fishing.

You are getting close Dora lake is about 15-18 miles north of us on county road 29.

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The Island lake Resort was a good stop for a bloody once in a while as well.

On a long weekend we would hit Squaw Lake, Marcell, Talmoon, Big Fork, Effei, and maybe out to Togo and back.

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1 hour ago, gunner55 said:

No Hayslips or Timberwolf for me ....... so far. It's hard to tell if/when the Timberwolf is even open.Tim S. at Bowstring Store told us,when we were up in January, that the owner of Riley's had passed away recently. Plenty of Riley's, The Hill, even Richies back when some of my buddies would come up. Not so much anymore.

Yea me either not enough time up there to spend in bars.

On 2/24/2016 at 9:12 AM, gunner55 said:

That's the reason why they advertise the county as " the county of a thousand lakes" sometimes. The recently opened bait shop in Cohassett goes by Thousand Lakes as well. The area from Talmoon to Big Fork & then over to Squaw Lake is full of those off the beaten track / unfished hidden gems your talking about.

And I thought there motto was Itasca county..... Come on vacation.... Leave on probation!!!!:D

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3 minutes ago, smurfy said:

Yea me either not enough time up there to spend in bars.

Not a big bar guy as well. We would hit maybe one each day for lunch on a two day weekend ride. Would rather sit at the cabin by the fire with a totty and BS at night then bar hopping.

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Smurfy, you know I get to spend a lot more time at the lake these days than you do. Now there's a lot of other things I'd rather be doing like leech says

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yea not driving 3 1/2 hours to sit in a bar. occasionally if its raining. if the wifey is along I may take her out to eat! 

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I still stop for a beer most of my trips up just to show my face. Nice to keep in touch with the locals. They have helped me out over the years and it's nice to keep the connection going. Very nice people in that area so I have to have a brew and visit. I have to say the trails up there are great for just sight seeing with all the lakes and wildlife. I never was a speed demon on trails as I enjoy looking around and when I find a lake I have to make a mental note of how to access it for future fishing. I have fished a bunch of those lakes with no public drive in access and never hit the big bonanza but it's fun just to think what might be in there. One of these days it's going to pay off I hope. Heading up Monday for a few days of warm weather fishing.

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Went out yesterday & caught enough for a meal. A bit cool when the sun went under & the wind came up as we never put the tent up. We found ~ 2' of ice but the top 8" didn't look very good. Quite a few others out as well & most were on the move/drilling the majority of the time. With the 10 day forcast the ice could be disappearing fast, especially if we get some rain

Edited by gunner55
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Went out yesterday from ~ 9 - 4 found a few more willin to bite. A lot of water on top when we came in. Did a quick check & found that we'd lost 4" or so since Saturday.

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Got out today & found ~ 18" of ice with the top 2-3 or so honeycoombed. No snow left out there along with no cleats made for a lot of small steps. Had a few interested, even fewer bit, only caught 1 keeper but was still a good day. Supposed to get even colder overnight tonight but we are most likely done for this season. Mid to upper 50's forcasted for Friday thru Tuesday here

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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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