Snow pack update???

[Neighbor_guy]

My brother and I will be up for the final trip of the season Sat/Sun. We plan on fishing the Graston Beach - Morris Point area.

Any update on the conditions of the snow pack on the lake? We will be on sleds, I am just wondering what we will run into once we get to the lake.

Thanks.

[Neighbor_guy]

I forgot to ask about ice depth too. He runs a nils and I have an Ion with the extention. Will we be good, or will be come up short?

thanks again...

[curt quesnell]

I think there is lots of snow and lots of ice left for the weekend. Extensions should be good for augers.

[WallEYES]

Neighbor guy.....I will be fishing the same area as you tomorrow...if that area as in the past don't produce, i will be fishing the "fields" area and to the west towards long point....good luck

[larson311]

We went out yesterday and made an igloo for the wind, the snow was 1-1 1/2ft deep.

[CANOPY SAM]

The snow pack has shrunk just a tad, and when the temp is below 32 the hard crust on the surface will keep you on top with your sleds. Honestly, sled travel is still the only way I'd go off-road anywhere right now.

We were up at the far east end of Long Point yesterday and fishing was really good! I'd venture we easily caught 50+ fish, however only 11 keepers. No big fish.

Funny thing. We set one tip-up out in front of our portable about 20 yards straight out the front door, to the east of us, hoping we might snag a wayward big pike out in deeper water. There wasn't a single other fishermen to the east of us for as far as we could see.

As we watched, two sleds with portables came slowly gliding across the lake from the southeast. They had literally hundreds of thousands of square miles of lake to drive, but one sled chose to drive right over the top of our tip-up. Without even realizing it was there, he snagged the tip-up on his sled ski, and continued driving along as though nothing had happened, dragging the tip-up along with him. Pulled the line up from the water, snagging the trebles on the bottom of the ice and snapping the line like a gunshot!

I think we would have been pretty upset, but the odds of this happening were so near impossible, all we could do was laugh! We actually laughed hard and long! They just kept on driving slowly across the lake and disappeared off to destinations unknown. We found the tip-up only a short distance from where he'd snagged it and dragged it along. Only the flag was bent, and the rig missing. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

Oops. Almost forgot. Yes, you're going to need your extensions. The snow pack has shrunk a little bit, but the ice hasn't shrunk at all. At the rate we're going we'll still have ice floating around on the lake on the season opener.

[Neighbor_guy]

Thanks guys, I will let you know what we find.

Now to find frozen cisco's....

[bturck]

Careful with that exstension topic, been the demise of some good people

[fivebucks]

Love the tip up story. Might come up the last weekend for eyes ((14th) as it is still sounding good for good ice.

[CANOPY SAM]

Fivebucks...Me too! I'm gonna be out on that ice until it's gone...which I now predict will be about mid-June!

Neighbor Guy...The bait shops in downtown Baudette have nice Ciscos, and beautiful big suckers for sale.

bturk...I only share what I know. Try to help everyone who asks, and mock and disrespect no one for asking. I suspect the "good people" were not axed because of one comment, or one post, but only after several warnings. It's forum policy.

Time to leave the "extension" jabs behind, and move on, but you'll still definitely need your auger extension on Lake of the Woods!

[zero]

gee sam, bad day or what? bturk didn't bring the extension question to you. and he didn't question how much you know or anything like that.

i think you owe him one.

just my 2cents

[Wanderer]

C Sam,

Thanks for the input, it's very helpful to folks who haven't been to LOW yet this year. I was on the Peg in Manitoba a few weeks ago and we definitely needed extensions but I didn't need one in Ely the week after. I still asked N_G if I should throw one in for the trip cuz lakes can vary even at the same latitude.

It never hurts to ask.

[bturck]

CSam, that was a tongue in cheek comment, disrespect as taken was not intended. Guess I should have included the smiley face.........

[bturck]

CSam, good report, thanks for sharing a good day on the ice, information appreciated and taken within that context. Hope you have another great weekend on the lake

[Wanderer]

CSam, that was a tongue in cheek comment, disrespect as taken was not intended. Guess I should have included the smiley face.........

Yah, it can help sometimes. You've been around awhile, Bill, and it seemed odd you might have an axe to grind. Thanks for clearing that up.

[CANOPY SAM]

Hey guys. I certainly didn't mean any disrespect either. As a matter of fact I was having a terrific day. Just stating the facts, but in no way were any shots being taken. Really easy to misunderstand someone's intent, or mood in only a few words in a blog, post, etc.

Hope you didn't take it the wrong way either, bturk. Love seeing your posts, comments, and humor here as well!

Wanderer, I'm always glad to offer some help. There's actually some pretty wide variation in ice depth on just LOTW itself. I've drilled in places where I've barely gotten thru with a 12-inch extension, then gone to another area where I wouldn't have even needed the extension to get thru? I'm assuming this is due to "stacked" sheet ice that froze that way following the big winds late last fall and early winter?

In fact, I'm still wondering if those big winds we had just before freeze up may have contributed to the poor ice bite we've been seeing all winter. The water clarity looks pretty good up at the surface, but who knows what it's like down near the bottom of the lake? That, in conjunction with really thick ice, and really deep snow, has got to have visibility down there at almost zero. Just watching a big sucker swim down on a tip-up it disappears into the darkness pretty quickly.

[Wanderer]

Just saw the variance in ice thickness drilling across about 100 yards of ice. Happy to have the extension. One small snot rocket so far in 13 fow. Pretty slow. Going to move in a bit shallower.

[zero]

now that's the sam i know

[bturck]

Opened our cabin this morning, not much time for computers no hook up there, so have a good summer once it gets here probably catch y'all next season

[Ballyhoo]

Snow has not melted much, maybe settled a little bit. Just got harder and rougher.

[Neighbor_guy]

My dad and brother ended up going one direction and Wanderer and myself ended up going a different direction.

The snow is rough to say the least. The depth varies from several inches to not much at all. It is very crusty in the morning and soft in the afternoons. Trucks were limited to the roads. I did see one wheeler out bushwacking yesterday afternoon, but he had chains on all 4 wheels.

Ice conditions varied as well. We fished main lake structure off the first break on Saturday near Moris Point. Ice was good and hard 28-36" deep. Sunday we fished the wash outside Bostic Bay. Ice was rotten and multi layered. It varied from 27" of rotten honeycomb to 6" of nice hard clean ice, to "I think its time to go".

An example and a story:

Sunday in the quest for a LOW pike we chose to go to the Bostic Bay rather than Zipple bay. There was some current due to runoff starting to flow out of the bay. We figured it would bring some fish by, (it did not). I had scouted the area a little bit the day before and kept the sled well away from the bad ice. and after putting on the ice picks (just in case) I decided to see if we could get some bait close to the flowing water. When I drilled the hole for the tip up below it had 6" of ice in it. That was close enough for me. An hr or so later the flag tripped. Dead bait does not trip acidental flags and this was playing out FAST and up current, it spooled us. Earlier in the day Wanderer made the comment that he hoped the otters leave the baits alone. As we are trying to decide if the flag was a fish or a critter we hear bubbles... Then the destinctive sound of something breathing, several deep breaths... followed by one very shocked otter comming up through the hole as we were getting reset up!!! He came back to look for another free minnow lunch!!!

We had both walked and stood on the snow dome the otter was breathing threw. If you look close at the picture you can see our tracks going back and forth over it. A tap with the big dipper and it punched right through. The dome was large enough that an adult would have gone through no problem. It was only 5' deep, but it still would have sucked. 15' further back, over your left shoulder as you look at the picture was 28" of ice.

The moral of the story = be carefull and wear the safety gear in the spring same as you would early ice.