South Dakota Melting?

We got back late last night from a quick two day trip to the Eden, SD area for ice fishing. Joe Honer & Kevin Pitzl agin put us on fish despite difficult changing weather conditions in the area. We caught several 12″-13″ perch on Waubay, along with about a dozen walleyes, all of which were between 10″ & 13″. I did manage one 20 incher before we left the ice on Sunday. On Buffalo, we did find a nice mixed bag of crappies (biggest 13 1/2″) numerous 8″-9″ bluegills, and a smattering of smaller northerns & five largemouth. One 18″-19″ caught & released, and one a bit bigger that got tangled in our camera cable & lost. We marked fish in every hole (on Waubay, in about 20 fow, on Buffalo, in about 13′) most would follow up to five feet, then would just disappear. We tried several different presentations, but struggled to get the fish we did. Ice was about 10″ Late on Friday, down to 8″ when we left on Sunday. The radio folks were telling people to use extreme caution when venturing out, so…..I guess we were close to good timing. Just enough of a good taste to want to return! Good fishing.

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I took the one photo out our door to show the messy ice conditions. With the foggy conditions we saw on Sunday, we did run into a county sheriff who warned us to use the GPS so we didn’t get lost like a couple of locals did. He just finished finding them and was NOT happy!

How thick was the ice

Ed Stern wrote:

Ice was about 10″ Late on Friday, down to 8″ when we left on Sunday. The radio folks were telling people to use extreme caution when venturing out.