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Current Ice / Fishing Report ?


Northland Sportsman

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I will be waiting for safer ice as I have to drive out but I just wanted to say THANKS to BenjaminD for those great shots of the ice mess we are going to have out there this year. That stuff looks worse then last years mess.

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So this post is for a current ice report and fishing report. So lets here something about the fishing. How has it been? I have heard the water is really dark so far and that the crappies aren’t really showing up yet. Is this what other people are finding?

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Everybody is is talking about the ice but what have you guys been catching, is it worth making a weekend trip this early?

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For my part, I prefer to be about the 500th vehicle on the ice in the wintertime, not the 1st or even the 10th. Not too adventuresome, but I'm still alive so I must be doing something right after about 40 years of icefishing. (I've already been through the adventuresome part - I usually try to just pass on most of that these days)

Pay attention to what Kelly says - he's just as eager to get out there as anyone else, but it takes cold weather to make good ice, and we haven't been getting it the past few days.

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Christ, somebody give a flippin fishing report and stop being so defensive and self righteous. We all know that lakes are going to have variable ice conditions, I just want to know who is catching limits of walleyes and crappies.

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Sorry for no fishing reports bigbak32 but very few people are going out there to try it and those that do aren't moving around much. I hink Jerry's fishing report from Roger's sums it up as good as any.

"Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Right now we have a couple of trucks out there, I wish they would get off the lake; they are making me very uncomfortable

This warm weather is not helping at all, according to my temp gage it only got down to 33.4 for a low last night, in fact about half of the snow we had here melted during the night. The ice pack is still there but it is beginning to look like March ice, we really need a change in the weather soon."

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The few that are fishing hard are getting there two keepers.I was out saturday and only landed two just over 17 so that were not bitng to well.Harry and his son fished a different area and did real well saturday evning and had no problem catching there 4. I have heard of a few crappies caught in closer which makes sense as I never seem to get then in the first part of dec.Out deep

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I was out tonight. I was a little late getting out, but they were biting right away in 8-10 feet of water. The gold jig with a crappie minnow. Only 9.5 inches of ice. I was suprised. The ice melting faster than I thought.

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From reading these reports the past few years.. Red seems weird in it's bite.. Seems as though that the bite doesnt really kick in until mid winter and the first ice bite can be a tough one... Any truth to what I have been thinking by reading your guys posts? Just interested in what you URL people thing... Could be wrong..

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Jim,

You are you going to be joining us up on Red at all this year??? Slabfest will be an awesome time....I'm sure someone could fit you in if you could swing it. laugh.gif

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Jim,

I think the game has changed this year. We would be out deep looking for crappie,and now the walleye are in close 6 10 feet of water. I have been chasing walleye around for the last two weeks trying to figure it out. I have heard and seen a lot of good pike action.

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My feeling is that URL is a huge lake. The first ice bite might be seem slow but on first ice we are barely inching out there and nibbling on the edges of the lake. By midwinter the roads are in place and we have 10's of 1'000's of more places to try then first ice. First ice on most lakes covers a good sized part of the lake, on URL first ice is a very small part of the lake.

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The few that fished the very first ice for pike had some of the best pike fishing in there life? After that big wind and all the ice piles it seems the pike became a little tougher to come by. They may have moved to deeper water?

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We went up on Sat and fished out of Rogers. We took 4 wheeler out and found about 12" the first place but only about 8" of ice in the rest of the spots we tried. We were out about 1-2 miles and moved around a bit. The bite was SLOW! 3 'eyes and 1 norther for 4 guys. There was not much traffic out there either. Ice was making a lot of noise and is really spotty. I hope the bite picks up for our next trip up.

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"Now we're talkin fishing...love it"

Me too!!!! This has stretched into 22 days now of trying to convince people that the rumors of good ice are just rumors. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! confused.gifcrazy.gifgrin.gifgrin.gif

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Quote:

They may have moved to deeper water?


That would be my guess, deeper more clear water. Pike are mainly sight hunters so they need to see to hunt easier with less effort. Plus the pike have been doing this trick every year as long as I can remember. First ice bite is bonkers for a week or two then nothing in shallow until late pike season.

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Just got back from the lake today and me and a buddy caught 3 keeper eyes (16.5" and 2-14") and two 5-6 pound northerns. Started in close, 6-7 feet of water, 17 inches of ice and missed a couple but couldn't hook any. Resort I went out of had two of his sleepers out already and many other permanents out there as well. After a while we went 2 miles out with the wheeler and measured 12 inches of ice. This is where we caught all of the fish as well as missing one or two more. Still were some people in vehicles farther out than we were.

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Hillman's have opened their road to SMALL vehicles. 1/2 ton or less. NO 3/4 TONS, NO 1 TONS AND DEFINATLY NO DIESELS. Buddy has it drug and marked out to 3.2 miles with a consistent 12 to 13 inches of ice. At 3.2 miles there is a nasty crack/pressure ridge. Buddy asks that people drive slow so they do not break the ice up. He also mentioned that if he catches any diesels on his road breaking it up even if he is in a good mood he will teach them some new words. grin.gif

Buddy sank his first plow truck Dec.15 last year, his 2nd trunk went down Jan. 18 last year so we are still a long ways from driving all over the lake. We still need colder weather.

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With all the time and effort Buddy puts into those roads he has every right to chew out some (Contact Us Please) running a big diesel out there now. Plus that screws it up for the rest of us. Thanks Buddy!

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sounds like we'll be making some ice this week! I'll have to get down there next weekend! Thanks Kelly&buddy!

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You gotta thank Buddy for the road, he's done everything so far. He says that somehow we have gained 2 to 3 inches of ice the past few days. I've tempted fate too many times and the older I get the more I realize it. I drove out a ways today just to see and he has drug it down pretty smooth through the rough stuff. There were some pretty good reports for walleyes from 2 1/2 miles and out to the end of the road. I would guess that the other roads will open up for small vehicles soon.

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Can't wait to get up there on the 28th and 29th in Kelly's classy BIG house....my boys and I always have a great time....personally, it's all about the experience...if we take home some fish, great....if we catch some and they go back, great!....a few years ago we tangled with lots of walleye...didn't even flinch....glad to see the lake returning...hope to mess with a few slabbos cool.gif

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Same report as earlier this week. 7 to 10 feet of water for walleye. Something with gold works well. I know from personal expierence on a four wheeler that there are thin and soft ice apots around some of the breaks and pile ups. There were some light trucks driving out to about the 10 foot break on the South shore. I would not drive past the 10 foot break on the South shore with a truck yet.

9 to 15 inches of ice

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This is just one of the reasons that I trust what Kelly says every time.

This was just posted on Roger's website

Sunday, December 17, 2006

The walleye fishing is still very good, just about everyone is leaving with their limits, you may have to sort through quite a few fish to find 2 in the slot but it is possible, the good parts is we do not have to go very far from shore.

I had to pull the bridge back to shore this afternoon and I have shut the access down to vehicle traffic because of a bad crack just a few hundred yards of shore. The ice at the crack was not breaking it was just sinking from the weight of the bridge itself, the ice conditions are not a whole lot better than they were a week ago, the ice itself is measuring close to 12 inches but it does not seem to have a lot of strength in it and every little pile of snow seems to gather water around it.

One fisherman today decided not to take my advice and started to take his own fish house out, well from today’s photo you can see he did not even make it to the bridge, he insisted that the ice measured 15 inches and would be safe to travel on.

Luckily he did not get out into deeper water…

12_17_2006%20oops.jpg

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That must be one of those "drop down" houses? grin.gif

It is going to take some sub-zero stuff for me to even think about putting my 1/2 ton on the ice.

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got out today, only made it out 3/4 mile out from Hillman's, fished in 6-7 feet of water, saw and marked nothing until sunset and then it was all the walleyes you wanted. Got our limits fo 15-16"ers rather quickly.

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Went up Friday afternoon with 3 buddies for our first URL weekend. We were only 1/4 mile off shore, and stayed between 6-8 ft of water almost all weekend. It's still pretty murky. The ice was 12-14" but we didn't stray more than 50 yards from the sleeper.

The walleyes were aggressive. Big rattling spoons with a minnow head were the most productive bait. Most of the fish I caught didn't even show on the flasher before they hit. Big shiners on something gold worked well when dead sticking. We did have some trouble finding fish under the 17" slot, but that's a nice problem to have right?!

A big thanks to Lonnie from Northbound URL for setting us up with that sweet house. And anyone that wants great walleye should bring some fillets into Westwinds. Simply amazing.

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