The weather was great, the fishing so so at best. I saw very few keepers in the fish cleaning shack. Great trip, but now I’m busy thinking about Big Wolf Lake in Cass first week of June. Nice walleye (no slot) and giant pannies. I just hope the weather is as great as last year. 
We’re staying at Polley’s. Not a fancy place, but it gets the job done.
what are the ice conditions like on Bone?
I never made it out, I probably should have. Lotsa lookers and no takers where I ended up. Got one northern on a tip up, that was it. Now I am planning on making it over this Friday.
Thanks for the tip. Is Bone Lake a night bite, or is there daytime action as well?
Thanks for the feedback. I have heard a lot about hunters and made a couple trips on the ice there last year. I was not thrilled with the fishing or the lack of “tips” but they seem to come highly recommended.
I’m looking at the flyer in front of me and it is definitey the 5th, this coming Saturday. I stopped by Frankies for some bait yesterday and it sounded like they are not close to 100 teams yet. Travel on the chisago yesterday was easy in a truck, it should be a great day of fishing. 100% payback! I mention this because i’ve seen other postings eluding to there being a $20 fee – there isn’t.
I think me and my fishing partner (wife) will probably enter our first fishing tourny! Hope to kick some panfish but this coming Saturday!
I think I recognize that pic from a text message yesterday. And I also think I have a new nickname for my co-worker.
Those are some dandy gills, must be 9+ inchs. 
Around the area I fish, north of the twin cities and south of mille lacs, has had good lake travel most of the winter. Go further north of mille lacs and it gets ugly fast.
Nice batch of sunnies, yum yum! 
PM sent 
Fred
This year we added an ATV and ATV trailer to our ice fishing arsenal. It’s so nice sliding my Otter lodge up onto the ATV trailer compared to the pick up that I’ve been taking my trailer to the lake all year. I’m not sure if i’m lazy or smart.
I have a half dozen from the Cass Lake area this past weekend that I wanted smoked. I just got off the phone with Flickers Meats in White Bear Lake; $1.59 per pound of cleaned fish, they brine and smoke it and also offer vacuum packaging for an additional charge.
Fred
I will never plan a trip in January again! We’ve made it “up north” 2 out of the last three years in January and we got to fish in record breaking low temperatures both times! We came home early, the fishing was slow. Not to mention the regulator froze in the wheel house we were staying in so we used our own heaters and made it through the -44F first night. It also had bad batteries so we had to have the generator running almost constantly. And the deep snow, low temps, slush on the lakes, all made lake hopping with the portables a bigger challenge than we were up to.
That’s the bad part, the good part is we caught a few more fish this time. Lots of little perch and about 6 northerns went back in the lake and one nice sunny, two nice perch, three eater northern (27″ was the biggest)and six Tullibees went in the bucket. We had lots of fun between the irritations and who we rented from did his absolute best to keep everone happy. It certainly wasn’t a money making weekend for him; fixing equipment, putting people up in hotels/motels, and having to plow a new road out to our friends on winnie to get them off, where much bigger problems than what we were dealing with.
Next ice fishing trip is going to be in Dec, late Feb or March, but never, never, never in January again.
Thanks for the advise. We are still going to bring up a couple ATVs. If nothing else we’ll be a bit more mobile on the roads and not block people off when we stop and drill some holes. If no lakes stand out for a good bite we’ll just have to role the dice and see what we come up with. Any opinions on big and little Wolf lakes?
