2024-2025 Vermilion Ice Fishing

[SkunkedAgain]

On 1/28/2025 at 10:40 AM, leech~~ said:

Wow, I never thought about that?  

They must have to change their auger blades a lot more too?  

Not if they use Cobalt auger blades! Great for drilling through iron.

 

The drifting is starting to get bad on the lake, making for bumpy rides.

Edited Wednesday at 06:44 PM by SkunkedAgain

[JerkinLips]

Went up a day early to take advantage of the nicer weather.  Thursday was a beautiful day on Vermilion; mostly sunny, very light breeze an 41ºF.  Glad I went up that day because the skid house was sitting in 3-8" of water.  Guess I shouldn't have left the house in water and bank snow around it on Monday.  None of the water under the house froze at all.  Decided it would be better to move the house to "new" ice toward the hole I drilled outside on Monday.  When I drilled holes in the new location I had about 1" of water on top of 4" of new ice, then 4" of water, and finally 25" of original ice; 33" total.  I would recommend bringing your auger extension since my Ion auger went past the base auger (32") up to the extension in this location, and you never know what you may find on clear ice (I would stay away from heavy drifts and tall banks because you will probably have lots of water come up on the ice in those locations.  With the house on 4x4 blocks, I switched to the extended bobber to easily see the far hole.  Works great.

 

The lake looked to be in very good condition if you avoid the drifts and snow banks.  Several pickups were driving on the open ice away from plowed roads and seemed to be moving fine.  I did see several wheel houses being pulled off the lake on Thursday.  Don't know if it was due to ice conditions, poor fishing, or both.  Today (Friday) looks very good to be on the lake (no new snow and all the loose snow has found a permanent home on shorelines or hard drifts/banks.  This weekend is another story.  4-8" of fresh snow on Saturday with 13mph winds.  Drifting is only going to get worse.  Next week looks good with no more snow and cold temperatures to freeze any water/slush that is on top.  The cold temperatures won't freeze the slush under the tall drifts/banks, so be careful.

 

Fishing was average.  caught a few early morning, a couple around noon, then went 5 hours without catching a thing.  Finally had a fair evening bite when I caught 4 between 4:45 and 6:00.  Finally gave up at 7:10.  Unfortunately all of the fish were quite small (9-14").  I may not find another decent walleye this winter.

 

Good luck fishing (only 23 days left for walleyes) and be careful around snow drifts and banks.  (Note: I removed all of my blocks and anchors from my original location, and plan to clean up blocks from other people's locations when all the snow melts).

 

[SkunkedAgain]

3 hours ago, JerkinLips said:

(Note: I removed all of my blocks and anchors from my original location, and plan to clean up blocks from other people's locations when all the snow melts).

You're a great steward of the lake. Thank you