1st trip of the year…

Made it out to a backwater slough yesterday with my nephew. We found three inches (at best) of very solid snow covered ice, the snow made it very easy to walk around. In talking to a guy I met out on the ice we have had 1 week of walkable ice in this area and the big gils and northern had already moved in and back out! We still did pretty well bringing home 35 eater gils from about 7″ some pushing 8″. Also we had 7 flags and 4 northern the biggest being 28″. There are tons of these sloughs up and down the river, so while I wont give the specific spot if you put a little research in the river you will find these areas. Also in talking to the gentleman I met on the ice I have a few new leads on some areas I will be checking out next week….

Thanks Sully- it did feel great! Happy Thanksgiving to you also

Nice report Big Pike! I am sitting here in Laos remembering the great times I have had the Chip especially on T-day. It was 2 years ago on T-day my dad and I floated the Chip and I caught 5 Muskies and my dad missed a deer. My dad and I have been doing a T-day trip down the river every year for several years now except this one. I bring my musky pole and he brings his deer rifle. I have always wanted to boat a musky and a deer in the same day.

I never have ice-fished those Chip sloughs yet but I have dodged ice chunks floating down the river at that time of year. Keep those Chippewa River reports coming. I love it!

Life is great! I am eating fresh gil and perch and enjoying frosty refreshment in the form of New Castle. Today was possibly my best day on the ice ever! I was fishing the Eau Claire river sloughs. This place takes work to get into. Driving down logging trails, climbing up and down steep wood hills but the payoff was some very cool sight fishing thanks to me forgetting the Marcum. Best mistake of the day I went to my normal fishing hole and drilled a series of holes. After 30 minutes and 1 decent northern I was moving into the next slough. Drilled a hole and looked down with my jig and I start seeing perch schooling through followed by larger perch and then walleye. This is very cool in 24″ of water, my auger melted all the snow with water and then it was aquarium time . Well after 30 minutes I figured it was too shallow for what I was doing so move on down to the next slough. Bingo, I start catching a mixture of nice gils and perch by dead sticking a marmooska and a waxie, I caught a few on a small jigging rap tipped with a minnow head, a bunch sticking my head in the hole and sight fishing and I lost my biggest ever sow belly perch on a tip up after I got its head through the hole Biggest gil was 9″ and biggest perch was 10″ not including the sow belly. I wish I had pictures but I have teenagers and I grabbed a camera with dead batterys..enough said there Anyways it was a truly fun day

Boy those are some real mug shots….

Nice perch, those are some sow bellies.

That sounds fun. Sight fishing through the ice is the best. I actually have a system developed to do that. I lay down on my front on a tobagen then use an old graduation gown as a cape and drape it over my head to block the glare from the sun and start fishing with jig, line and hand (no rod or reel needed). I have actually out fished others that way because when panfish are finicky you can’t tell a bite sometimes but you can see them bite by doing this. It is a lot of fun to fish this way. I fish in really shallow water and have learned a lot by watching panfish bite. It’s the fall of the bait that triggers them.

Great Job Bill!

Thanks for the report Bill!! I wasn’t around this week or would have been out testing sloughs and small lakes. Did have a chance to ice fish in northern MN and it is great to be ice fishing as you boys say.

Made it back out yesterday. The gils were just slammin in the afternoon. We came home with a fine limit of perch and mostly gils in the 8-9″ range, overall we caught atleast 100 fish and we could of stayed longer and caught more but it was a bit cold and it takes work to get back out (I am still tired from dragging my crap back out) We aslo caught a 4# and 6# northern. Overall it was a great day, the gils were in 2-3′ with weeds, the perch bite seemed to be down but once we found the big gils we stayed on them. I actually have pics this time though the 3 pics are a little blury, I think I got some moisture on my camera lens…..

Bill, you killin me here!!!

Awesome Job, I need to get out and give that a shot!

Thanks Pete, I found this spot last year and I have had a to year to think about refining my way of attacking it, this year I have moved around more and its paying big dividends. There is more area back there I have yet to explore but that is the fun of it for me. Finding the gils this year was a big bonus, after last years perch bite!!!