Well here it is Christmas day and I have not posted one report from this winter yet. With ice being fishable now for a few weeks there has been alot of ice fishing being done in South Dakotas Glacial lakes region. I have been out sparingly, but with ducks to shoot and work getting in they way not as much as I have liked. I have however been able to get out alot in the last week and fishing has been good.
I have been fishing some sunfish and crappies on two different bodies of water with varied success. One day its hot and one day it is cold. I have been finding the crappies and sunfish relating to shallow weedflats in 12 foot of water adjacaent to much deeper water. Crappies and sunfish have been coming on 1/16 oz pug bugs in red with a red mustache worm or some spikes. I have been using the mustache worms more often especially when fish are more qggressive. The next day this bite has been tough using 1/64oz pugbugs paired with 1 or 1 spikes. Fish have been notorious for coming up 3-4 feet off bottom and slinking off. I expect this shallow water crappie bite to continue for awhile before crappies start to relate to main lake points and basins as winter moves on.
As far as perch goes I am seeing perch relating to mainlake basin and points at the moment. I have tried to find a shallow bite, but not much success in that arena. I know others have found some success in shallower water in that 10-14fow range. My crew has found all of its perch in 17-20fow. This past weekend we had an amazing day fishing perch, as far as action and numbers go. We were on move number four of the day when the screens on the electronics lit up and it was on. Between 7 of us we put roughly 130 perch on the ice in 30 minutes. We had multiple people fishing the same hole. When one perch flew up the hole the next lure was half way down with a fish on the business end in a matter of seconds. Fish were taken on rapala ripping raps #5 golden shiner, VMC rattle spoon in red, as well as VMC rattle spoon in UV green. Needless to say the fish were on a tear. With temps in the single digits no ones hands even got cold in this flurry of activity.
Currently we are seeing anywhere from 12-17 inches of ice, snow cover is marginal and vehicle travel has been great currently. As I type this we are getting a few fresh inches of powder and hard to say what that will do to accesses and lake travel with a little South Dakota Wind mixed in. Pike have also been hitting on some smaller sloughs. I chased flags on sunday afternoon with family and we put plenty of eater sized pike topside with smelt and suckers on the business ends rigged with VMC sureset hooks. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I will be fishing as much as I can from now until ice out. – Tight lines and Slimey hands – QB
Love the detailed report QB! Cool that perch were eating that Golden Shiner Rippin’ Rap, might have to call that color Sodak Sunset because of how well it seems to work out there. You guys seem to be putting on the ice too, with travel conditions on-ice seemingly being phenomenal. Great to hear. Keep at it, and thanks for the report!
Joel
Perfect way to have fun on Christmas day! Awesome fish!
Quinnten,
That is a ton of fish! Congrats!
Nice fish QB!
Looks like you’ve got some awesome ice fishing out there is Sodak!
Great job and report.
Boy sometimes I miss the prairies… Especially walleye fishing. WTG QB
Joel, yes this color works amazing out here. This past summer me and James had open water success for walleyes with this lure. I have made this lure one of my go to search lures on new water. I like to start with the aggressive approach and scale back from there if necessary. – QB
Kick butt on the clean up !!!
I have spent a lot of hours on the road to fish in some remote places, but yet have I made it out to your back yard…
Well Don QB !!