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The Arial thing I saw, maybe last year, was at ice out and it was done by somebody with a drone.    Some of them have pretty good range and altitude.      

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Friend went out ½ mile from McKinley Park yesterday and found 4 inches of solid ice.  He said there were people as far out as Birch Island.  His photos show less than 50% snow cover out from the Park which should help make good ice with no more snow predicted in the next 2 weeks.  With cool temperatures tonight and tomorrow I think some brave (crazy) people will be taking out ATV's and snowmobiles this weekend.  I am going up December 7 just to be safe.  My next report will be in the Vermilion fishing thread.

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The update is much appreciated JerkinLips.

 

Since it was further behind, the west end (Head o Lakes) is likely further behind in ice development.

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Where did you get that satellite image? I tried some of the National Weather Service / NOAA satellite imagery inks but there was too much cloud cover to see the lake. 

 

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We got out on Niles yesterday. The Bay is all frozen up, although we didn't venture out on any of the new ice. Stuff we fished close to shore had 4"-7" of nice hard ice.

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Fished one of the local lakes last evening.

6 1/2"-7"s of ice across the whole lake.

There was a wheeler out there, on top of the ice. lol

Let the fishin begin.

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Went to the same spot last night.

Don't know what's happening, but we only had 5 1/2"s of ice last night.

Dug 6-8 holes, fished for an hour, and there was water all over the ice where ever we stood.

Better be careful out there.

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I want to go fishin pretty badly, but there is a fine line out there that I'm not about to cross.

We got in the truck and left that lake too. Didn't even stop at Vermillion, can't believe it could be any better. I used the fishing hooks for  LIVE BAIT HOOK - MZFHLBTI-XX fishing which is more effective to caught a fish. The 3 lakes we looked at were all less than a 1000 acres in size, the one with the open water, right around 250 acres. No body ever accused me of bein a genius, but I'm not about to risk my life to go fishin. LOL

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Walked out from McKinley Park today. Only about 10% snow cover. Ice looked nice and dark and I found 6 inches of ice just out of the bay. Couple dozen groups out today and somebody had a permanent fish house close to Birch Island. Numerous 4 wheelers were running around in addition to a couple of snowmobiles. I have two of each but won't be taking them out until the end of next week considering the warm temperatures before then. If you venture out be very careful.

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On 12/8/2020 at 6:02 AM, idlesmelt said:

I want to go fishin pretty badly, but there is a fine line out there that I'm not about to cross.

We got in the truck and left that lake too. Didn't even stop at Vermillion, can't believe it could be any better. I used the fishing hooks for  LIVE BAIT HOOK - MZFHLBTI-XX fishing which is more effective to caught a fish. The 3 lakes we looked at were all less than a 1000 acres in size, the one with the open water, right around 250 acres. No body ever accused me of bein a genius, but I'm not about to risk my life to go fishin. LOL

I need me a box of 1000 of those 9/0 hooks, I hear they are the bomb for walleye when  using rainbows.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Heading up next weekend for a while, and wanted to double-check that the ice in HeadOLakes is thick enough for sleds. I know that people are riding mid-lake and east, but those bays froze faster. Are people running machines across the west side?

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