Fishing Report 12-25-2004 (Adrian's)

[hanson]

I was fortunate enough to spend Christmas Day ice fishing on Lake of the Woods! How great is that?

Started the morning crossing Pine Island on Adrian's Rd and set up the portable amongst the hundreds of hardside houses on the lake. We fished for an hour & a half or so in 24'-25' of water and caught absolutely nothing! I marked 2 fish on the Marcum and that was it.

We proceeded to move out to deeper water. We found approximately 30' of water and caught a little sauger within minutes of being set up. We fished this spot for the remainder of the day and caught another 25-30 fish. Most were little tikes but one sauger was pushing 18" and another one wasn't far behind that one. 2 very nice fish in my opinion. My dad also happened to hook into a nice jumbo perch, 12 plus inches.

It seamed that the fish came in schools. You would catch 5-6 at a time and then it would get slow for a half hour and then it would pick up again.

The fish definitely preferred jigging spoons to any other type of lure. We had 2 rods actively jigging throughout the day and they accounted for 90% of the fish. Scenic Tackle's 1/16oz Go-Devil in Perch color, Hammered Gold Angel Eye Jr., JR's Slammer in Perch color, and a gold Swedish Pimple in size 3 were the ticket. I gave my Orange/Gold Chubby Darter a workout yesterday and it accounted for 2 fish.

The fish were more than willing to chase the spoon 3-6 off of the bottom before hitting it. Whenever I saw a fish near my lure on the LX-3 and it would just sit there, I'd jig it a little bit and start raising it up. The fish would start to follow and I'd keep raising it. Once you were about 4' off of the bottom that was it. Smack!

Check out the thread on Adrian's Rd for ice conditions. They were pretty good.

[bturck]

Hanson: Thanks for your update. We're leaving at 5am tomorrow for three days. Looking forward to some relaxation and of course a few fish as well. Good luck, and hang on. Bill

[Northlander]

How much ice is over Pine in 30' of water? Did you drive a truck out or sled? Im thinking about maybe Thurs up there.

[hanson]

Northlander-

We had 12-14" of ice where we were set up. It is a lot thicker in shallower water, I would say 20-24" or so.

If you head straight out of Adrian's Rd, you'll probably go a mile or so and the line of permanent houses stops. This was where we hit around 30' of water. The resorts were using full size trucks with plows to move the houses around and bank them in at this depth. We were out there in my dad's Ford Ranger but there were full size vehicles as well.

bturk- Good Luck, I think you guys will run into some good fishing.

[Northlander]

Thanks Hanson.

[MIDNIGHT777]

Hanson, I was up earlier in the week and did exactually as you did (25 ft then to 30 ft) and had the same results, except we had a few larger (only a couple dinks) fish. Amazing how they were more willing to take it if they had to chase it up.

Matt

[curt quesnell]

Just got back from a great Sunday on the Lake. I had heard

it was better in the deep so we went straight out to the

last row of houses, took a right and went nearly to the

end of the houses. I took a reading with the Marcum LXi

(the hand held flashlight style depth finder) and was

in about 27 feet, we went out a couple hundred yards

farther and the LXi read 29 feet. I didnt want to take

the Surburban out any further so we set up. There was

16 inches of ice.

Set up one line with an Ice Buster bobber and a small

yellow jig. The other line had the glow red Go Devil.

Started catching fish right away (8:45 ish) and, like

the other posters, caught most of the fish on the jigging

spoon targeting individual fish and getting them to

chase the spoon. We had only a few fish all day that

would appear on the flasher and not at least bite.

From the start we decided to be fussy because we heard

the bite was pretty good. We were careful and brought

up all the fish as slow as possible so we could release

the little guys. At 11:45 we had 7 nice Saugers each

and they were all good ones so we got fussier and fished

until 2 for the last couple of fish. We packed up and

got home just before it got dark.

5 Pout and Jumbo Perch rounded out what we caught for the

day. I was fishing with Big Jay from Warren and he had

a couple Walleyes in his bucket along with the Saugers, I caught only one Walleye all day and it was a little fella. Didn't get any big fish but, I was very happy with the size of the Saugers as I cleaned em a few minutes ago.

Adrians Road is in great shape, there is very little snow

so getting around was no trouble at all.

Fun day out there. BTurck, I think you are going to hit

it just right again. Have fun everyone