Ice fishing season finally arrives

The extreme cold finally brought a belated start to ice fishing around the Chicago area, but it is going now and leads this sprawling raw-file Midwest Fishing Report.

Here is a great pic of Jeff Kopa and Jason Shaw on one of the last possible boating days of the season.

I am getting ice reports of 5 inches or more on many places. Channels, ponds and shallow bays have the best ice right now. As always be careful and safe. The remaining cold the rest of this week should give us 8-10 total ice In many places. Customers are taking wax worms, red and white spikes and wigglers for panfishing. Tip up anglers are using medium and large golden roach minnows and frozen jumbo smelt. Dave’s Bait and Tackle is open everyday 7-5 Monday through Friday 6-5 Saturday and 6-3 Sunday. We have everything you need!

Hey Dale,

Here’s an update on IL ice and the first ice fishing report of the season. Ice is building at a rapid pace with these fridgid temps. I was able to slowy spud and drill all the way out to the main basin on a small wind protected lake. I found 3 inches of clear ice with another quarter of frozen slush on top. Since I had all the gear in the truck, why not drop a line down some of those holes. The shelter stayed In the truck as I wanted to stay mobile and hit as many holes as possible. Not an easy task considering the winds and -18 feel like temps. Weed flats In 5-6 fow Is where I started. The bluegill bite was finicky early on. Catch a few and move on to the next hole. The bite did pick up an hour before dark. I did fish a few holes out In the main basin and picked up a few small crappie. No one plastic seemed to work the best today. Pink did seem to be the best color though on a Wiggleyourworm_fishing custom jig in glow wonderbread. The ice will continue to build through the weekend. The season is finally here.

Ken Husker O’Malley

Husker Outdoors Waterwerks fishing team

Hi Dale

Sending this update before synchronus e learning activities begin. The ice has firmed up enough on island lake to start ice angling. I set up my tip up for a couple hours yesterday without success. My hole froze up immediately. There is about 4 inches of ice and it’s getting thicker. Hopefully the weather will moderate a bit and people will be out after panfish. A few weeks till the ice fishing derby on island lake.

On the music front the conscious rockers are tentatively scheduled for outdoor patio shows at Austins next summer. I’ll be joining Midnite mile at Main street outfitters jan 26th and also at Carmel high school street Scenes event. And i went to check out the studio at Gordon drums place and it looks fantastic. Hopefully the recording process can begin soon.

Tight lines and good health!

Rob

I haven’t heard any good reports from bass anglers this year, but the folks chasing crappie and catfish have done well. Finding the old ditches that are now underwater and fishing the bottoms for catfish or the vertical sides for crappie seems to be the strategy.

My nephew AJ Cwiok, Fox River fishing machine. Thought you’d like this. Stay dry and warm amigo.

Mike Norris

Big Green Lake: The first snowfall of 2024, which rolled in last Tuesday, fell way short of predictions, and a few hardy anglers were out in their boats catching walleyes on Big Green by Wednesday evening. The second snowstorm of the week arrived last Friday, bringing blizzard-like conditions with high wind and fourteen inches of blowing snow. Arctic air followed with highs in the single digits and lows down to fifteen below. With the wind settling down, we should have walkable ice of two or more inches by mid-week and ice thick enough to support four-wheelers and snowmobiles by next weekend. Exercise cautions the first time out. What little ice cover we had was blanketed with snow and will be insulated and soft. We had two snowmobiles go through the ice this past weekend. Locals rescued both operators. I should have my first ice fishing reports next week.

Good morning fellas. Not much of a report, but this is what I got

We just are starting to see some ice forming now on the inner bays of Sawyer Harbor, Little Sturgeon and Riley’s Bay including the Sturgeon Bay Shipping channel. There were a couple of brave souls that tip-toed out, but the wind was so strong that the ice continued to shift around even in the shallow bays so it was not very safe as of yet. And that is unfortunately what we have to deal with this week. We are going to have extremely cold temperatures this week which is great, but we are also going to have very strong winds that will accompany the cold. We will just have to see how it all shakes out.

Early in the ice season, fishermen will be targeting Perch and Pike in the shallows and if it is safe enough, possibly some shallow water Whitefish. An assortment of jigs tipped with minnows, minnow heads, wax worms, spikes and plastics will work well. Another good method for both the Perch and the Pike is to scatter tip-ups throughout an area and suspend minnows on them. Lets just hope the ice we do get this week will stick around through the predicted warm up next week.

On a side note….cross country ski trails and snowmobile trails are opening up as I write this!!

Thanks,

Lance LaVine

Howie’s Tackle & Archery LLC 1309 Green Bay Rd Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235 www.howiestackle.com P: (920)746-9916

Don’t look now, but winter is here! Halfway through January and the cold and snow has finally arrived. Here, up North, the snow wasn’t too much, 3-4 of light stuff. The cold and windchill on the other hand is substantial. Temps in the double digits below zero at night and wind chills of 20-30 below kept a lot of anglers off the ice by Saturday (1/13). Prior to that, fishing was very good, especially Friday before the front hit. Ice conditions are improving fairly rapidly with the sub-zero temps. As much as this weekend hurt, it will only make things better for the remainder of January into February.

Crappie: Very Good-Poor – Reports on Thurs/Fri (1/11-12) were hot! Anglers could do no wrong working basin Crappies in 22-30’ of water 3-5’ off the bottom. Small flashy spoons (Kastmasters, Flash Champs, Bull Spoons) as well as #3 Ultralight Rippin Raps, T-Rips and Tikka Flash lures, even not scented up with bait were being inhaled. Once the storm hit, that bite, along with angler participation shut down. There is still a portion of the Crappie population holding in 9-14’ weeds that are taking slow dropped plastics or grubs.

Northern Pike: Very Good-Poor – As with the other fish, Pike had been active. Weeds in 5-10’ were holding Pike, but even this bite shut down with the front. As always, big shiners and suckers on tip-ups.

Walleye: Very Good-Poor – Bite here started to slip mid-week, only to get a bump Friday morn (1/12) before really closing down. Expect more fish to move out deeper as ice thickens and rely on typical off shore humps and even some down in mud basins to feed. Suckers usually do better in these instances as well as jigging Raps.

Yellow Perch: Good-Poor – Starting to show up more in catches as more anglers moving out over mud in 15-25’. Wigglers on pimples, Kastmasters, Hallis and bull spoons. Still some nice weed fish in 5-12’ taking tiny Bluegill shaped lures, K-Rips, T-Rips and Tikka Flash. The bite also died, but should pick up this coming weekend.

Bluegill: Good-Poor – Just like everything else on report, was good, then slammed shut. Weed fish in 5-12’ on tear drop style jigs baited with waxies and mousses. Some nice Gills being found over mud basins of 15-25’ on heavier tungsten jigs tipped with spikes or mousses.

Largemouth Bass: Good-Poor – Once temps get much below 20 degrees LMB seem to bite less. Very few anglers target anyways, but they are a fun mix to anyone jigging and tip-up fishing weeds.

Getting reports of anglers finding 8-9 of ice as of early yesterday morning (1/15). Not only that, but the bite was surprisingly good (Wife filled the bird feeders twice!) So even though I doubted the mental capacity of those going out in that cold and wind, I don’t doubt that the fish bit as the barometer rose. With more lows in single below zero temps and not cracking teens for high until Saturday, we should see plenty of 10-13 of ice (to be on the conservative side) by the weekend.

Upcoming Tournaments

Feb 10th – 22nd Annual Plum Lake Ice Fishing Tournament – Plum Lake

Kurt Justice

Kurt’s Island Sports Shop – Like us on Facebook

I’ll send it ya bizy yesterday and today ice ice ice fishing now some and some going end of week just getting there stuff ready

Some groups on ice on local area ponds. With this cold the ice is growing an inch a day.

Not a ton of reports from ice fishermen yet but lots of groups in the shop last couple days getting geared up.

Come this weekend there will be bunches of groups on ice.

That’s all I’m hearing now ice ice ice.

Slez’s Bait Shop has all ice gear and bait ready to go.

The river is locked up again. We had 12 of snow last week, and will slow down the ice machine. I’ve seen a few portables on local ice, but with sun zero temperatures not many venturing out