Ice fishing report 12-9-21

By Cody Hill of CHill Guide Service

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…but what does it mean for our local lakes and the yearly tradition of fishing out of our hard sided fish houses during Christmas? In our area we received a fair amount of snow from 3-8 inches this past weekend and after the storm passed it brought us lots of arctic air that we needed prior sadly. Snow on the ground is a good thing, it helps reflect the suns energy and stops the ground from heating up especially along shorelines and keeps our ambient temperatures colder but on the other hand, it has put a blanket on top of the ice preventing the cold temps from forming as thick of ice as possible. With that extra weight on top of the ice it is and will potentially cause flooding and slush pockets on top of our ice.

I was on a lake Friday after the warmup and there were lots of sketchy spots from the warmup especially near any standing weeds. Those weeds absorbed the suns heat and started making the ice melt and it looked a lot like late ice but in December. Saturday, the temps dropped allowing our ice to freeze and heal itself but sadly it didn’t have enough time to heal itself completely and that may hurt us in the long run of the season.

Ice on the lake is not a ridged structure that many people think it is but, it’s a lot like a trampoline. As you add weight on top of the ice it sinks down a little bit and as the ice sinks down it cracks slightly on the bottom side as it stretches. As more and more weight push down from above any crack or hole that is drilled starts flooding the area. This causes anyone using the lakes either for fishing or snowmobiling headaches all year long. Hopefully we had enough wind during the storm Sunday night and Monday to blow the snow off the ice so it can keep forming.

Now that we have snow covered ice it is harder to see the color of the ice and make sure we always have safe ice underneath us. As people start exploring more and more lakes it becomes more important to check the ice as frequent as possible because we can no longer see that the ice looks different as we are walking. Another concern of mine with snow covering the ice are kids and snowmobiles. I know when I was young, I couldn’t wait to get our snowmobiles onto the lake to drive them. Snowmobiles will need approximately 6 inches of ice and I have only seen one lake that had that prior to this storm.

I have gotten multiple messages asking about when I think people can get their permanent shacks out onto the ice and my response is not this weekend. Will you see someone driving a lightweight spear shack out with a four-wheeler this weekend? probably. Do I think it’s a safe task? no. I respect ice and if you are jumping at the bit to get out, I strongly suggest walking your whole route on the ice drilling holes every hundred feet and measuring the thickness. I have an ice scoop that has the inches on the side so I can measure the ice easily and I measure ice at EVERY hole along my route. If I have enough ice I go back and get my rig to bring it out and I drive next to each hole I drilled as I proceed. Watch your water level in your hole as you drive extremely slowly and see if the ice is sinking or floating with your extra weight on the ice. If along your route you see the ice is now flooding, I strongly suggest turning around and waiting to do it another day. If you have “head space” between the ice and water level in your hole you are good to keep proceeding.

When you get near your destination and you disconnect your fish house drive a distance away and park your four-wheeler or snowmobile. Remember the more things you have in a smaller area the more that trampoline sinks in the water and by parking a reasonable distance away helps spread your weight out better preventing the area from flooding.

I was able to get out Friday afternoon and Saturday before the storm hit. Fishing pressure both days were a lot higher than the weekend before and I only expect it to get tougher, so it made fishing tougher to narrow down the bite. The fish were out on the flats roaming last weekend and this weekend a guy next to me had forward facing sonar unit and we were watching the fish holding tight to weeds and only coming out in certain areas kind of like deer trails leading to a field. When we found those “trails” we would drill our holes in a tight area, and we had great results. If it slowed down, we would hold tight, and another batch of fish would cycle through our area making it very fun to set up and stay comfortable while fishing.

Tungsten jigs were the ticket this weekend but some people next to us were having luck with small spoons. Spoons were getting less numbers, but the fish were better quality where tungsten’s were getting more fish, but the average tended to be on the lower side. I had to force myself to experiment with other color plastics this weekend because I ran out of white and I was having luck with Red, Orange, and Black but also heard blue was working great also.

Sadly, I will not be on the ice again till the 18th of December. This upcoming weekend the Fargo Ice Fishing Show is going on and I will be in the Ice Fishing Minnesota booth the whole weekend.

Stay safe on the ice!

Cody J. Hill

Ice Fishing Minnesota

CHill Guide Service www.chillguideservice.com