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Wakemup,

I also like them scaled and the skin crispy but hate all of those scales every where so I fillet them with no skin.

Cliff

I have not heard any news about the City Auto Glass.

Pike Bay will be open to fishing. Ice being off of it will be close!

Cliff

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Scaled n skin on after gut n de-head. Wash n batter n sizzle. Fork at Dorsel n whole fillet falls onto plate or butter bun or hounds mouth. : ). Mmmmm sooo good.      I dream melt ice at Nine inches per week starting today -  Pike bay be open day before opener clear out to Marauderville. Then Bonnie n I n Polar Bear do opener on Docks as per our tradition. Dreams are fun.   Then everyone wants to can enjoy the fever reducer that is our sweet Vermilion. Big Smiles. Maybe weekend after opener?  All good but just miss our lil chunk of paradise x million. An lake friends n nuts.  Think warm thinks!  Thanks for letting me post some n butt in on threads a bit. Still two feet of snow here n same ice an nothing to do outside easy.  Peace...     T

Edited by TomWehler
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Was out for a while on the Partridge River this afternoon, didn't have any minnows, managed one 13" crappie on Gulp waxes.  But, the old Strikemaster almost bottomed out-close to 30" of ice.

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I was out on Vermilion fishing today again. Big bay still has about the same amount of ice but the ice is a lot softer now! Small patches of 4" to 6" deep slush pockets on it.

Pike bay seemed solid when we went out but when we returned almost the entire bay had about 6" of very soft slushy ice on top!

That will be my last trip out this winter.

Talked to one Native that I saw checking a  net that he had  out under the ice in Pike Bay. He had caught around 15 walleyes and a pike today and 8 or so walleyes yesterday. Tough way to catch fish!

Cliff

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2 hours ago, dgdg said:

 

Well the Pike River Dam is finally running at full throttle.  For those of you who aren't up here to see it for yourself, you can see it here:

https://www.everettbaylodge.com/lake-vermilion-ice-out-2018-the-dam-is-running/

Lake Vermilion ice out 2018.jpg

Thank for the update and photo Dave and Diane!

Cliff

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What a difference a day makes, yesterday the dam was locked up tight and today it's roaring. Walleye should be running this week...

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To all you guys who’ve been keeping us posted, thank you. I’m an islander so I don’t have much hope for the opener, but I’ve been reading all the posts (read them year around), including entertaining posts on new gear, and, again, thanks for letting a lot of guys know what’s going on there. The current weather, forecast and web cams, give me hope! I’m thinking I may get back home in three weeks, maybe four.

Keep the sun shining,

Dick

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18 days to opener,  I hope there is some open water we can fish.  our group can't reschedule due to work issues.  Come on Sun/Rain!!!  Our golf courses are just opening up today!!  smh

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There will certainly be some areas of open water to fish by the opener!

Pike Bay ice is deteriorating fairly fast now. Other small shallow bays are probably not far behind.

Cliff 

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Ice is going fast!  The sun is high and powerful, we're flirting with 70 degrees and the forecast looks promising. I'm feeling pretty confident there will be a lot more open water then most are expecting.  

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Sounds like the record of May 23 is looking safe for another year... 

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Nice to see there might actually be some ice melting up that way!

jkrash, those are hooded mergansers though. ;)  I might’ve called out my first woodie sighting this year as one of those too.  But nah!  I know what I saw had to be woodie! Haha!

Seriously though, I’ve seen more, and more variety of ducks this spring than ever  in my life.  The late lake ice outs have made the river a diver Mecca.  I think I saw a few with Ely or bust signs on em too! :D

The bulk of woodies have been in the Little Falls area for about a week, some for a couple.  The hoodeds have been here for at least a month.

They’re all coming though!

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Your Right! after clicking on the picture a couple times and zooming in you can see the big white head of the male hooded mergaser.

Edited by jkrash
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I hope this analysis is wrong, but was doing some math trying to guesstimate when Lake V might go ice free.  

As of today, the DNR shows only one lake in the state to be ice free: Pepin.  Pepin went out 20 days later than the median date and 4 days later than the nearest comparable cold year of 2013.  

If we extrapolate this same delay to Lake V, then we are looking at an ice out in the neighborhood of May 20th or 21st.  Not quite the record, but close - and plenty late enough to screw up a lot of plans. 

Like I said, I hope this analysis is flawed somehow. :/

Edited by BrianF
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On 4/22/2018 at 4:36 PM, Cliff Wagenbach said:

I was out on Vermilion fishing today again. Big bay still has about the same amount of ice but the ice is a lot softer now! Small patches of 4" to 6" deep slush pockets on it.

Pike bay seemed solid when we went out but when we returned almost the entire bay had about 6" of very soft slushy ice on top!

That will be my last trip out this winter.

Talked to one Native that I saw checking a  net that he had  out under the ice in Pike Bay. He had caught around 15 walleyes and a pike today and 8 or so walleyes yesterday. Tough way to catch fish!

Clif

We need Skunkedagain to turn his wife's hair dryer full blast!!!!! Lol

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I would imagine the man made pepin connected to the sippi is open not the actual lake pepin?

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we got a lot snow down in the twin cities than up north and temps are a lot higher than it was in 2013.   I think we will have enough open water to fish the opener.   No one needs to cancel!  I HOPE any way :)

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some of the lake access areas might be interesting to navigate thru ad DNR is prepping the public landings

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5 hours ago, AlwaysFishing23 said:

I would imagine the man made pepin connected to the sippi is open not the actual lake pepin?

Pepin is natural feature of Mississippi, not man made.   Seems the Chippawa dumps a lot of sand in that causes the mississippi to back up, forming lake pepin. 

But the ice going out on pepin is probably due to runoff starting and raising the river level and flow as much as anything.    If I were to compare stuff I would look at average temp for Virginia in march and april of those late ice years compared to this year.  Throw in May for good measure.

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Just talked to my neighbor up at the lake and he said one of SunkedAgain's neighbors in Black Bay couldn't get to his place going across the Partridge River-he said he almost broke thru the ice!!  I'm down a ways toward Wakemup from the narrow part going into the bay, but we had over 30" last wknd.  Looking good for some open water to fish down my way by the opener!

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Just for fiun I went to wunderground.com and looked at the weekly averages for 2014, 2016, and 2018 starting the beginning of march. 

2014--May 13 ice out

5  25 20 14 29 38 29 39 39 44 44 56

2016-April 25

17 38 34 30 34 25 43 47 41 52 46 49 60

2018-???

21 24 24 26 17 26 33....

Looks like we are behind 2014 with respect to getting average temp above 32 if that is significant, although the weeks don't line up exactly and we are way behind 2016 .

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, delcecchi said:

Pepin is natural feature of Mississippi, not man made.   Seems the Chippawa dumps a lot of sand in that causes the mississippi to back up, forming lake pepin. 

But the ice going out on pepin is probably due to runoff starting and raising the river level and flow as much as anything.    If I were to compare stuff I would look at average temp for Virginia in march and april of those late ice years compared to this year.  Throw in May for good measure.

Well you learn something new every day! I always thought it was mad made. Makes sense now why it formed now.

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A truck broke through Birch Lake the other day in like 20fow, an ATV broke through Prairie Lake and a man lost his life. The ice is deteriorating RAPIDLY. There will be some ice chunks, but I firmly believe there will be more open water than ice by May 12.  Temps up here are forecasted near 70 for a few days next week. 

 

 

Edited by BRULEDRIFTER
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Drifter, I hope you are right about having more open water than ice.  Was looking more closely at the average ice out dates maintained by the DNR. The avg dates for the lakes that dot the southern most part of the state are approximately one month ahead of the lakes that dot the northern part of the state like Burnt, Kab, and Vermilion.  As of this morning, none of those lakes in the southern part of the state are ice out.  Are we still a month away from open water on V then?  God I hope not, but the math isn’t helping me feel confident. 

Edited by BrianF
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