Its been longer than I wanted between reports but until last wednesday there hadn’t been much to talk about during that long spell of snow, snow and more snow. I am going to go to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday format for the fishing reports from now on. That way we can re-cap the weekend on Monday, discuss weather and trends during mid week on Wednesday and re-cap what has happened all week and look ahead for what to expect for the weekend on Friday.
The lake conditions had become so tough to move around everyone quit fishing. Well the good news is that the warm up last week changed all of that for the better and right now the ice conditions are FANTASTIC and the FISHING is even better. Walkers, wheelers and snowmobilers can go just about anywhere they want right now and both the NORTH and SOUTH shore are fishing very, very well. Lets get into what we know and what were going to do about it?
1) We know that the big sunfish, bluegills and crappies are going crazy in Big Bay since last wednesday. I have seen many limits of crappies in the last 5-6 days as well as buckets full of slab sunfish. The Sunnies are also biting very well in polar beach and lower south bay(if you can get access). The best jigs lately for the flat fish have been the pink glow demons, pink or green glow ratfinkee’s and the green or blue glow Moon Glo jigs tipped with spikes.
The perch are biting just about everywhere but seem to be the best from the area off Doris Park (13fow), east of Dakin Shoals (22-28fow), south of the drop off in the mouth of 3 mile bay (15fow), back again in the cut between long and little island (12-20fow), off the east end of Dunham’s Island in the dumping grounds (16-22fow), off chapman park in (22-30fow). Now some or all of these spots have been producing walleye’s right along with the perch, but the best walleye bite seems to be centered on the north shore between Constantia and Cleveland. Dakin Shoals on the north east side, off the drop off at Willard Island and on the western end of Cleveland bar most reports are between 22-28fow.
Perch are eating everything at times, big Caty Willow blades and Northland single hook forage minnows are the ticket in 15fow or less and the small crushed ice swedish pimples and #3 jigging rapala’s are cleaning up in water deeper than 15 feet. Another trick this time of year if they get fussy is to use the bigger metal spoons as a weight and flash attractor and tie either tiny ice jigs or ants or flies in line about 12″ apart up the the line. These can be tipped with Maki plastics, spikes or perch eyes for a little more of a finesse presentation.
The walleye’s still want something a little bigger and meatier. Pimples and Kastmaster’s tipped with a minnow head are hot and I highly suggest changing out the treble hooks right away on the lures and either putting multiple split rings on and then a single hook or tying a dropper out of heavy braid or mono about 3″ long. That way you have a better free swinging hook under the heavy metal and will get better hook up and landing ratios with a single hook.
Remember we have only 3 more weekends until walleye season closes until May so lets make the most of them. The weather forecast from now through sunday afternoon looks incredibly good. We are still fully stocked with ice fishing gear and bait and as always are open at 6am everyday.
Thank you
Matt
