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I'm still waiting for the water to get good and hard here in Northern Illinois. It's just taking way too long this year, too much warm weather.
Anyway, I'd love to post an Ice Fishing Article on the home page. All I need is a little bit of a story, and some pictures. Tell you what, post an Ice Fishing Story or Report here with some pictures, and if I publish it on the home page, I'll mail you out a t-shirt. C'mon guys, lets see some good Ice fishing posts. Lets get this party started!
The lake by me is froze over, I checked it a week ago, and I'm checking it again tomorrow. If it's possible to get on it without taking a POLAR DIP, we'll try it..
This time of year the situation can change in a matter of hours sometimes. We have some decent ice on some smaller, shallower bodies, but some others nearby are still wide open. I had people call the cops on me yesterday, although I was out on a good 5-6" of real nice ice. I am not one for taking chances on the ice, though. Last Thursday I called it off at the shoreline on that same lake. It really does pay to be extra careful on new ice. Make sure you have your cleats along too. Where I was yesterday was glass smooth and slick as grease. One can get hurt just falling on that stuff.
Hey Slab How far are you from Neilsons Channel? Thats usually first ice in Illinois. We will have to meet up iffin we ever get any ice.
I go to Nielsens often, by Hermans bar. We'll have to meet up. Right now there's open water everywhere.
We are having a small gathering on the 20th and 21st up in Cadillac.
Hermin: Wait no more, get up here and we'll go fishing..Quote:
Originally Posted by Hermin
Neilsons only has about an inch of ice. I wish we would get a good freeze or a better heat wave. If I cant ice fish I'd like to at least open water fish being stuck in limbo is getting old.
Pick your days, reports of fish through the ice in the chanels off Pistake for the past week have been had. Seen lots of pics of 100+ bluegill day with crappies mixed in.
Ray
My fishing partner got tired of waiting for my cold to clear and went down to one of the deeper street drains feeding into the river here in Minneapolis. It was wide open and he took a number of crappies, a pile of bluegills and a carp out of the warmer water in the drain mouth, which is maybe 2 or 3 feet deep at the most. A number of the fish came from up inside the drain itself. That kind of spot is a very good fall back spot for panfish when the ice is not dependable.
You won't wash away in a spot like that and this winter that's been a problem. I just read where the red door Resort on the north end of Mille Lacs Lake has closed all accesses to their's to the lake again. I think this is the fourth time this winter. The ice sheet keeps shearing off with the windy conditions we've had, stranding anglers out on the lake. The lake still has open water in the center and that's where the issues arise.
We have a number of smaller lakes and some sheltered bays here in the Twin Cities that have fishable ice, but I have our auger and have been too much under the weather to go out the past week or so.
We fish that particular spot from time to time especially early in the year, because it is a warm water outlet and draws a lot of fish when temps are low. I had not considered it for this time of year before, myself.
It also has some business dumping some kind of cleaning material waste water at times and we do not eat the fish from there. In fact we seldom stick around there long enough or the fumes will make one sick. The fish don't especially seem to be affected, though; so it is a catch and release point mainly as a backup. This has been reported to authorities several times but nothing seems to get done about it. It might in fact be less of a holding area were the pollution problem cleaned up, since the water comes down quite warm and keeps the area thawed all winter. Pollution is definitely one of the problems around fishing street drains. One is never quite sure what will get flushed into them or dumped by some party not quite pristine enough.