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Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)
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By Brianf. · Posted
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. . -
By SkunkedAgain · Posted
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. -
By LakeofthewoodsMN · Posted
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. -
By CigarGuy · Posted
With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end! -
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By Mike89 · Posted
lake here refroze too... started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind... very little ice left today... -
By Hookmaster · Posted
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. 🤯 -
By SkunkedAgain · Posted
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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Question
CNY Tim
I just wanted to touch on a couple of things about the battle between the LX-3 and FL-18 and the misconceptions that I have read on another site in regards to MarCum maybe like another Zercom in that they only might be around a couple of years.
No one company has been able to crack Vexilar's domination of the flasher market they have been the top dog for years and with good reason. My buddy has had Hondex, Si-Tex, FL-8's and a FL-18 and he is in love with Vexilar products. Heck my FL-8 is/was a great unit... I loved it. Vexilars service is exemplary, no doubt about it.
Why would I buy an FL-18 if I did not like Vexilar products? The FL-18 display colors are the best on the market bar none. There distinct and my favorite feature on the 18. I also like the zoom and I.R.(when it works)
Twice last season while fishing I lost 4' of zoom on my FL-18. The bottom 4' went completely red on my FL-18 and I was not the only one that experienced this problem so did my buddy's Dad the same day.
I had issues with my FL-18 that rendered the zoom useless "contrary to popular belief not all fish reside in the bottom 6'". Also I had interference problems around FL-8's and FL-18's that took forever to clear. The FL-18 is not perfect.
With the MarCum LX-3 I never had these problems.. I could attack fish in any situation with confidence and not monkey around with adjusting and readjusting when hole hopping. With an FL-18 for example each time you change holes you have to constantly tweak to stay in zoom. This is never an issue with the LX-3 you can run and gun and spend more time fishing. I ice fish to enjoy myself fishing not pushing buttons and readjusting on a 29' flat.
The thin line display on the MarCum LX-3 is truely awesome, technically it is a better unit and extremely user friendly, if you thoroughly tested these over a season you would come to the same conclusion. I love zoom and demand performance and the FL-18 is lacking in this regard plain and simple. Remember competition is a good thing I hope that these companies keep trying to out do each other for years to come. MarCum has a tall task to be there like Vexilar has for so many and for so many years. Eight of my buddies switched from there FL-8/FL-18 to the LX-3 without one regret.
I remember last season I heard vex fans shout that MarCum copied our splitscreen technology, I.R. patent infringements, hi-jacked technology. Unbelieveable how the Vex faithful attacked this little up start company. Was it fear that MarCum had a better unit??? You bet it was...And here we are a year later and I say to myself why would MarCum want to steal the FL-18 technology and put in it's LX-3? If they had copied the FL-18's technology MarCum would have collapsed after one season.
Doesn't make sense to me...
MarCum engineering have set the bar high with the LX-3 and in my opinion did right by it's customers by releasing the LX-3 into the marketplace after it was fully tested. Unlike the FL-18 whoops "You may need a Version 2 upgrade."
One fishing trip is not a good test you have to run em both all season under all sorts of conditions to make an intelligent assesment, that's what I did and the choice for my buds and I in water less than 40' is the MarCum!
MarCum/OVS has an entire line of quality products, underwater camera's, hand held depth finders, etc. Clearly a company that is showing signs of growth that are unparalled for a second year organization. The engineer's at MarCum are second to none. MarCum has a good thing here and in my opinion will be around a long time.
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