Lake Travel...Ice Conditions

[Coach1310]

Just curious as to what the lakes are like currently.. How much ice and where.... What is need to travel on lakes...Will a four wheeler do or do you need a sled....coming up this weekend any help appreciated. Thanks

[snowfighter]

Haven't been on the lakes, but have talked to people who have. Big Bowstring has 8 inche plus with some areas of slush. South end landing off county 37 is the one that has slush and some had said bad ice. Talked to one person who was out last weekend from the east side a mile out and said no slush but a pressure ridge to go around.Was just up to the north access off 35 and there has been some snowmobile, 4wheelers out. Friend on the north end of Big Jessie said there was about 7 inches with slush, the access on the south east side has some small houses out front. I have been checking the access and talking to people and you get different variations which I would expect with the heavier snow this year. I'm planning on getting out in the next few days but I would recomend snowmobile to be sure of going, for sure if you are pulling a portable. At least thats my opinion and what I'm going to use.

[BassLaker]

The north end of Bass has about 10" of ice about 200 yards out. There are some fish houses out farther and a lot of 4-wheeler traffic. Lots of snow but haven't seen much slush where I have been on the snowmobile.

[Hermit]

Each lake seems different, but cover enough water and more an likely you will find some slush. Personally, I prefer the snowmobile right now. I tow a portable behind my snowmobile but before I approach the spot I wish to fish; I will disconnect the portable and do a "drive by" at high speed scouting for slush.

Definitely enough snow now to make foot travel a real workout on some lakes...........any more than a couple hundred yards and you will be sweating no matter what the temp. All said, I would'nt recommend current conditions conducive to scouting out an area or fishing a lake "green".

[zman1329]

I was up in Marcell area over the weekend and found the lake I was on in good condition for atv or snowmobile travel.The only slush we found was around the shoreline in spots, although the snow cover on the lake made for some interesting travel in spots.I talked to some locals who said some of the other lakes in the area were pretty bad slush wise, kinda gotta take it lake by lake I guess! The 2 people in our party that got up early Friday morning limited out on nice crappies that afternoon, but saturday we found more lookers than takers and only managed 1 limit between 5 of us, pretty poor fishing!