Ice ice baby was the famous vanilla ice song. As the lyrics go, we are making ice in the northern tier of the state. I would say we are a bit behind on the ice development, but in areas it’s happening!

I spent much of the later portion of this week roaming around the Devils Lake region. We found ice from only 4 inches all the way to 10.5. The snow is definitely impacting the ice. Where there is no snow, the ice is pretty decent. Where the snow has built up or drifted it’s a lot less. So please by all means take it slow when venturing out. The main lake just iced over, so we haven’t even tried to check main Devils yet.

We did do a little fishing along the way while checking ice. We struck out in a lot of areas we were checking. Just didn’t mark a bunch of fish, and found some areas of really dirty water. We did however fish some structure like rocks, old sloughs, and some old brush piles. The walleyes were fairly willing when they came in. We did find the plain hook and full minnow to be best for them on some structure off shore areas in 8 to 14 foot of water. Low light periods were definitely best.

As we punched holes to check ice, we did venture into some of the flooded timber. We managed a handful of perch. Again, the main portion of the lake we would normally be fishing, just hasn’t had enough time to build enough ice for us to feel confident in fishing it yet. We will get more adventurous as we go here. Sounds like another pretty good cold snap on the way.

I have a few openings left for this winter. I really get busy after the holidays, but that will mean a lot of up to date fishing reports. If you are interested in a fishing trip please get ahold of me!