Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone icefishing this winter?

Huge warmup blew in Monday, and the ice is going fast with off and on rain all week. Didn't do worth a crap yesterday, and the ice was getting really soft around the edges. Today or tomorrow will likely be the end of the season locally, unless a big cold snap rolls in next month for a second freeze up.

They are better. IMHO. But so are yellow perch. Yellow catfish and a couple others. Walleye are ok, but not at the top of our list

Geez, that was a short season! I took my boys out on Sunday. Not much of a bite going on unfortunately. I had one nice fish break me off, and that was it. Temps around 5° and no wind luckily. About 24” of ice I’d say. No warmups in the near future here!

No question about that. Much better!

Ted

Poor man’s lobster is what most of our Alaska friends call them.

Ted

I'm on the tail end of the ice belt, so seasons are extremely variable, but they've been generally trending worse/shorter the past 10-15 years. It's been a few years since we had a real solid one that lasted very long.

Local ice topped out around 8.5-9" It was -4° Sunday... it's 40 and raining right now, and supposed to be pushing 50 by the end of the week. 😒

I use to have an ice shack that I would spend lots of time in, the best way to fish I found was cut a hole in they ice 2ft by 2ft then push they shack over the hole, and open the trap door over the hole then procede to pack snow all around the shack to block all sunlight from coming in, with the inside totally dark and they only light coming through the hole in they ice the view is incredible. You could see the bottom no problem and just toy with the fish it was almost an unfair advantage. When I was sick of eating fish I would go there just to sit and watch and take a nap.

Below zero at night here the last several day, and until Sunday, with highs in the single digits. At least the overflow has pretty much firmed up where I’ve been fishing. Looking forward to some highs in the teens and twenties again!

Took my niece last Sunday, about 18 inches of ice. My niece caught the first fish and everyone on the lake heard her scream with excitement.
It was just a practice run to see what instruments we needed.
Plenty of snow so ice cleats were not critical but I should get a couple extra pairs, and my wife voted to get a sled to pull the stuff in.

Have been researching the 40v power head for the auger instead of my drill. Wonder if a grinder as a power head would work? I don’t have much alternate use for a big big drill or the Eskimo power head during off season.

We JUST got ice! Damn global warming. How dare they!

judging by the open water on our closest reservoir, I'm guessing anything under 8k' elevation is open water or very sketchy.

read in the history section of our local paper this week that 50 odd years ago they had the same type of weather, had to cancel the ice fishing tournament at one of the bigger reservoirs in our county.

no ice fishing here this winter it would seem

Went out a couple hours after work again today... the bite was a lot better than yesterday, but the edges are just about shot.

where would be the closest serious ice fishing to Ohio? the UP?

I bought an 8" Eskimo pistol drill auger and use it with my cordless drill. The auger only weighs about 3#. Works great so far up to 20-24" of ice. May need an extension though by March!

Presque Isle Bay, Erie Pa, has ice for now.

The 8” pistol is what I got. Supposedly a little hard on drills, per the lgs. I am using a makita 18v. Just might upgrade.

I use a cheap Kobalt 24v one from Lowes that has 825 inch-pounds of torque. Got to have a minimum of a 4AH battery for ice thicker than 6-8" though. The 2AH doesn't have enough azz to get through the deep stuff without cutting out or dying quickly.

Pretty much.

Those are some well fed rainbows!