Despite the lack of posts recently, I have been on the hard water plenty! Last week saw a mix of new panfish spots scouted, with success. Over the weekend, family day had me out again on probably the nicest day ever spent on the ice. Hard to believe it’s only February! We landed a mix of panfish, some really nice northern pike and had another bonus BBQ at lunch. Who doesn’t love sausages on the Bar B? More recon again these last few days and more great results. I just hope the warm weather doesn’t shut us down too quickly. Caution is key with above zero temps coming as well as huge winds. Although there is still plenty of ice, the surface slush will make it difficult to get to those far away places, off the beaten trails. Hopefully there’s more cold ahead to button it up and extend the ice fishing season till the end of March. The best fishing is yet to come!

Kurt & his wife Jenny picked a perfect day to fish today! Although they booked a couple of weeks back, their timing was bang on. The temps began single digits f but felt a whole lot warmer without any wind and the gloves were off too! Flags were set but only one quality pike was caught. Plenty of panfish were also taken by jigging throughout the day & jumping holes. Jenny even managed some nice crappie that were released to be caught again! The overall experience was topped off by another BBQ lunch consisting of sausages and cocktails! Overall, a great day with even greater company!

Great day on the ice with Harrison & his wife Emily from Ct. Despite the cold temps we still managed to stay warm! Good day to be in a shelter jigging while the dead line polars do the outside work for you. Plenty of fish were landed today! We even managed to have a BBQ for lunch!

Careful what you wish for! Instead of the unwanted east winds from a couple of days earlier, today saw another hurricane like day. The winds were blowing 15 to 25 knots from the SW with gust over 35. Couple that with the 20 to 30 millimeters of rain that fell overnight and residual falling rains this morning and you have the makings of an absolutely perfect day! Darren was with me for his last chance at open water fishing for the year and hoping for a few big fish. I decided to start in the same area I had done well in only two days earlier, but unfortunately it was completely void. I had to find them again! With a little exploring, I did just that and Darren was into a really good fish, right away! The winds weren’t helping much by pushing us all over and boat control was quite difficult. We covered similar areas and he continued to boat decent fish throughout the morning. By afternoon I decided to slow down and fish a little deeper in hopes of getting a mix of walleye & smallies. The bites were extremely hard to detect and more fish were missed than landed. Despite this however, there were some nice bass and a few walleye brought to net. We were limited to where we could fish with the big blow and even the drifts were difficult to complete properly. In the end, I decided to stick with only casting as it seemed to be working somewhat better. We managed to pick a fish here & there but other than one area, I never really found any concentrations. Darren had caught five fish on almost as many casts there before it just died. I guess he got them all! We remained on the water until about 3:30 before calling it a day. It would be nice to get out of the wind tunnel we had been in and relax on the drive home. Although today had not gone the way I had hoped, we adjusted to the conditions and still put many fish in the boat. With December upon us now, there’s very little time left before the boat goes into hibernation. I am still hoping to get back out, but you just never know what Mother Nature has planned in the coming weeks.  This may have been the last time for me as well. Hopefully not though with plenty more walleye & bass coming aboard. Only time will tell what the future will bring!!