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Gonna need a bigger parking area soon. Who's gonna be the 'lucky' one to find the thin ice this season? I would suggest the use of a pfd to folks wandering the pond. I'm not looking forward to reading the article in the trib about the guys that start dropping through.

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  • SKIPPERS KID

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drove by lester today on way from two harbors to st.cloud.alot of people out there.couple guys out pretty far.was fun to see traps on superior.never seen the pond in the winter.

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So there is still ice on the big pond? Crazy. Was going to try looper fishing from shore with my 8 ft rod later this week when I am up there, but I guess my little walleye ice jigging rod will do. Guess I'll have to bring the auger and shack, too. Hard to believe...

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Be careful on that ice if you decide to give it a try, iceboy... It's getting to the point in the year when the ice can get a little sketchy in some places.

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Have the rivers shown signs of opening up yet? I'm not gonna be able to make it up there until saturday the 31st. The loopers/steelhead won't be running up the rivers yet, will they?

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The knife looks to be open the most. Still ice at the lake but the river itself is flowing. Lester is flowing...by the 31st they should all be open I would think and have a few fish. Water might be pretty dirty though with debris. We'll see what happens but it'll probably be tough fishing. I'll be on the brule and i'm anxious to see how the river looks that weekend.

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I can count on one hand the times I've been able to do any productive river fishing on the north shore in March. The Brules a better bet.

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i walked the knife yesterday and the temp is still only 33 degrees and there is still a ton of shelf ice on the bottom of the river. It will be a while before any north shore rivers are worth fishing.

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So come the 31st the lakeshore will still be producing good numbers of loopers? That's what I'd rather do anyway.

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It should be, "good number" is a relative term when talking about shore fishing however. grin.gif

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Not to mention we don't know what the ice conditions will be. it's supposed to be warm this weekend, which should put an end to the ice fishing, but sometimes slush/broken ice can plague the shore for quite a while. You can usually still find somewhere to fish though. By the 31st I would HOPE we're all clear:)

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I had a response on a different thread telling me that pretty much everything from just north of the French River to Two Harbors was clear. But, I took a drive up the scenic highway today, and didn't see fully open shore until after the Knife River. I think the wind blew some ice in that hadn't been there the past few days... The upcoming warm weather will help, but I'm sure we'll have slush and drifting ice for quite a while yet.

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how is the ice holding up in front of the lester after today? I suppose its pretty sketchy now i know a lot of local lakes around here in cloquet are developing a lot of water on top fished a couple lakes around here today with a couple inches of water on top... coho still biting i was down couple days ago and good on coho

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Ya, good number is a relative term. Last year in the creel survey, angler hours for looper or clipped steelhead was 16.1 hours per fish, with unclipped steelhead coming in at 8 hours for said fish.

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There was probably quite a variance in angling skill and method. Regardless, 16 hours is a long time to wait for a fish.

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How much mortality do Loopers suffer from Lampreys? At 31.5 this one seems to have shook the parasite & is the the biggest I've seen. What is the longest Looper you've seen?

RedLake1-1.jpg

RedLake1.jpg

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The fish was caught off the lester 200 or so yards, on the ice. Yesterday there was @ 4" of sh!tty ice above 12" to 14" of black ice.. The shore is pretty sketchy though & someone will go through soon... Glad it was not me yesterday...

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I was on the ice this AM at the lester...still pretty good ice, surprisingly. Slow fishing on the cohos though. I got skunked, only saw 1 on the way off. I think we got most of em' already, time for some open water. Casaloma, what was the weight on that 31 incher?

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Not sure, one observer coming off the deeper ice stoped by for the fight & he ( unbiased ) approxed. it at 12#...

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Greg, congrads on the nice looper. Give me a call after the ice is gone. I'll go do some shore fishing with ya.

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watermark.jpg

There ya go DeathRoe.......I don't know if you were using the UBB "URL" or not, but try using the "image" link instead.

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Thanks a bunch, thats what i tried,

Oh well, i did the wrong pic anyway. What was i thinking? confused.gif

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[image]http://www.myfishingpictures.com/watermark.php?file=505/11452biglooper1-med.JPG[/image]

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watermark2.jpg

Great fish!

I just copy the URL, click image and paste. Hope that helps.

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caseloma- am I the only one here who notied that this is a steelhead, not a looper. ( the present adipose is a tell tale give away.)

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Chad

If it had an adipose fin and was a steelhead it would be a native ,,and would have to be released back to the water ,,,the pic sure looks like a looper to me

Randoid

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RedLake1.jpg

is this not the adipose fin right here? put coloration aside. the only real way to tell a looper from a steelie is if or if not it has teh adipose fin.

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Both loopers and steelhead have adipose fins; if the fish doesn't have one, it's because the DNR clipped it off. I was under the impression that any rainbows taken from Lake Superior were supposed to be released if the fin wasn't clipped. That's what I saw in the fishing guidelines book for this year, anyway... You may want to check on that before keeping any more of them that still have the adipose fin.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

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