There’s not much good news if you want to get on the ice. I checked many lakes today. I checked nearly all the earliest spots to get on and there’s not much ice around.
Shields….couldn’t get off the shoreline w/ maybe an inch.
French…didn’t check but appeared to have some open or barely frozen over the deep water basin. No one on the ice in am.
Mazaska…only got out 10 yds. and it was 2 inches
Kelly Dudley…fishable ice along shoreline break, but still an open area
Tetonka….had white caps
Sakatah….I thought I’d get wet if I went any further than 10 yds.
Cannon…2 inches on one shore 3 on the other, but I didn’t want to get wet finding out what was in between.
The best ice I found was Hunt lake where I got out about 50 yards and was still on 4 inches in water probably neck deep.
Be careful as you begin to hit the ice. Due to the wind direction accompanying freeze up there is quite a variance of ice thickness from one side of the lake to the other. Some areas may have 4 inches, but it is frozen chunks that got busted off the other side and blew across and piled up. That piled up re-froze stuff can go from good to ugly in the matter of a step.
So before you load up all that gear and head to the ice….get the ICE PICKs around your neck or through your sleeves and dig that LIFE JACKET out. Put it on over your insulated gortex hurricane suit and see if it fits and that you could move in it w/ an extra 75lbs of water weight. Bring a rope and tie it on to you and your fishing partner and make sure your partner has ice cleats in the event he needs to pull you out via the rope or vice versa. It would be nice to keep everyone warm and dry this ice season! Good Luck and hope for calm, clear, cold nights!
TGIF
November 29, 2003 at 2:03 am
#1292109
