The Rise of the Slush Pocket

This cold front that has lasted well over a week has been a help in ice production and on most areas there is sufficient ice to hold most full sized vehicles.

Lots of places reporting 15-18 inches of ice.  Trouble is, you can’t get a full sized pick up out onto the ice in most places and if you dare, I strongly suggest it be an area you know very well and that you have a set of chains on your tires.

At this time we are recommending travel by tracked vehicle only.  The snow is hard, but not that hard.  ATV’s/UTV’s and Sno-Bears are able to ride right on top.  Trucks are too heavy though, and getting stuck in a hard 2-foot snow drift is no fun, trust me.

Some Pros/Cons of the Conditions as They Sit Right Now:

Pros– Limited Access=Limited Fishing Pressure, there has not been near the pressure on the fish we would normally see do to the snow conditions, so if you can get out there with tracks, you are going to have the opportunity to attack some fresh, unmolested fish.  A lot of areas haven’t been hardly touched yet and the usual onslaught of people that follows the holidays has not occurred yet due to limited accessibility.

Cons– Slush, its an ugly word when talking about Ice Fishing, but we are starting to expereince some areas with this issue.  The Lakewood Boat landing access and the Casino access are two areas that have this problem and anywhere that has seen some holes drilled will have slush areas.

Pros– It is very evident out on the ice where virgin spots are, you can absolutely tell if guys have been fishing in the area and if the spot has been pounded.  We like Virgin Ice!

Cons– Ice trolling is tough, real tough, with this much snow.  We will still be attacking the ice with the same zeal we always do, it just takes a lot out of a guy.  Perch Prospecting is a numbers game and the higher the number of holes you are able to drill in the right spot, the more fish you are going to catch.

Pros– Great excuse to buy that snowmobile, 4-wheeler, UTV, or Sno-Bear you have been wanting all of these years.

Cons– This snow condition on the lake wreaks havoc on equipment and not everybody has a heated shop to thaw things out after a day on the lake.  I know it can be time consuming but post trip maintenance on your equipment will save you headaches later on and give you more time to fish when you are on the water instead of wasting time on breakdowns.

Accessibility

Places that we KNOW you can access the lake right now due to enough fisherman activity to keep the accesses open are:

Woodland Resort

Bud Bay-North Towers

Grahams Island

Minnewauken

Extension’s Boat Landing

Acorn Ridge Boat Landing

Behind Pop’s

Casino

Ackerman Acres

Lakewood, kind of

Dion Road-North Six Mile

Six Mile Boat Launch- South 6 Mile

The northern Feeder lakes are tough for parking right now and the issue right now is that people parking their rigs on the side of the road are blocking both traffic and snow plows, the Wardens have said they will start ticketing if necessary.  If you are going to park on the side of a gravel road, please be considerate and make sure you leave room for local traffic.

We have not heard of the situation on East Devils Lake but will be investigating that this weekend, if anyone knows of the access out there, please drop all of us message in our comments section.

SUNKEN DWELLINGS PACKAGES

We want to help put you in this likely habitat and we started that yesterday with the Flooded Timber Package.

Along with Flooded Timber, the catastrophic rise of Devils Lake also had another Fisherman’s benefit in the form of sunken farmsteads and human dwellings.

That’s right, under a lot of that water all kinds of man made junk.  Buildings, foundations, tractors, rock piles, chimneys, roads (both paved and gravel), driveways, cars.  In fact, there are numerous ones of these that we fish a lot and catch A LOT of fish in and around them.

We have dug into our records and compiled a number of SUNKEN DWELLLINGS Packages that direct you to the better areas where the remnants of human activity have become the Devils Lake Walleye and Perch Anglers dream!

Good Luck Out There!

Hold On To Your Rod…

and…

CATCH MORE FISH!