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Tonka Report (2/24)


JBMasterAngler

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Made it tonka (1 day later than planned). Fished the narrows, and to my surprise there really wasn't that many people out on the ice considering it's the last day of walleye season.

Caught about 40 perch...most being right on the borderline of keeper size. Hooked in to 1 18" walleye that I lost at the top of the hole. Made a desperate attempt to hand grab it to no avail...my glove is in the bathroom being dried with a heater as I type this. crazy.gif

Wanted to come out on saturday so I could stay late and fish after dark...couldn't do that tonight because of work. Oh well, there's always next year. I think I will try to squeeze in 1 more panfish trip here before ice out though.

How'd everyone else do?

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Spent a good part of the weekend out on Tonka guiding. Ran through a tank of auger gas on both days but ended up finding fish a on few spots each day. The target was crappies for the most part. Sorted through a bunch of smaller ones but eventually tied into some larger fish. The deeper holes held a lot of fish but it ended up being the shallower weeds that held the more consistent numbers of larger fish. Depths from 9-13 feet seemed to be key. Fish were caught on size 8 Ratsos, pink head and white body. They would hold tight in the weeds and then slowly rise out to take the bait. About 2-3 feet of weeds on the bottom is what we focused on.

A great weekend to be on the ice weather wise. Not much wind and a lot of warm temps! \:\)

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My 11 y/o son and I had a hoot fishing for sunnies on Saturday. We were out for about 4 hours and caught 50+ sunnies, kept 20 for dinner. From what I observed everyone seemed to be catching fish. We drilled holes from 30 to 12 FOW just a little away from the main group of houses. I think we found a nicer class of fish than the folks in the main group were catching. These fish seemed to be thicker and had that "hump" that some sunnies get behind their head. At times there were so many fish on the flasher it was hard to tell where bottom was. Didn't matter what depth we were at, all the holes were active.

My son really got into sight fishing for them inside the portable in about 12 FOW. He was using a small "Jig-A-Wopper" tipped with a waxie. He stayed in the shanty for quite a while working on the sunnies. Every now & then I'd hear a "Got one!" For a kid who didn't like ice fishing a month ago, he sure is into it now.

I stayed out in the sun and fished in the open. The warm sun felt good. I switched around for a while and tried a number of baits, but it seemed the hands down favorite was anything tipped with a waxie. Lots of short strikes on baitless hair jigs and plastics.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
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    • Brianf.
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    • SkunkedAgain
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    • LakeofthewoodsMN
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    • 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
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    • 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
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