Blizzard Europa Was Not The Ice Fisherman’s Friend
We have a lot of snow now, more than we wanted at this time. Ice production will be brought to a stand still and accessing the lake is a problem right now.
We walked out off of Highway 20 into East Bay yesterday and it is foot drift after foot drift interupted by small areas of 4-6 inch snow. The snow is also really hard, but not hard enough though. We also only found about 11 inches of ice so even without the snow, vehicle travel is iffy at best.
To compound that, we aren’t going to adding ice as quickly as we were due to the insulation of this snow. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but it is what it is.
If you are venturing to Devils Lake anytime soon, I would suggest Snowmobiles, 4-wheelers with tracks or chains on the tires, or a Sno Bear.
We checked numerous accesses yesterday after our walk onto the ice. A guy can get out to East Bay behind Pop’s, the Casino as of yesterday was not accessible with anything but walking, the Dion Road on the north end of 6 mile was broken through but not ideal.
Woodland Resort is cleared out, make sure you stop and check in before you use their access. Creel as of last report, though, only had about 10 inches.
Now the Good News!
The silver lining is, guys that are getting out with ATV’s are finding fish. We caught this yesterday…
and we were only able to cover a small area as we were on foot.
We marked a lot of fish in this area, just a lot of yo-yo’s, for those on foot, it would be a good starting point. There are a lot of Perch on this flat, 21-23 feet on the edge of flooded timer and above the next old shoreline.
Getting a lot of reports of Perch coming in. The snow will be a hinderance, but if you can get out and have access to Atv’s, there are plenty of Gold Mines out there to be had.
Happiness is a Devils Lake Diamond
The Diamond mine is still rich in what it had to offer us, helped these guys get on them, you can get on them too:
Questions About the Northern Feeder Lakes
We have gotten a lot of inquiries about the northern feeder lakes, i.e. Lake Alice, Lake Irvine, Dry Lake, Mike’s Lake.
Truth be told, they are a mess with snow and even gaining access to them is going to be treacherous for a while. 66th Street, which is the Ramsey/Towner County line, leading to the north end of Lake Alice and accessing the north end of Lake Irvine looked like this in front of my mother’s house:
We cleared out access to 281 just so we could get out, behind that drift was a 100-yard 2-3 foot drift that was impassable. Obviously, in time the county will clear it but they won’t be clearing the non-essential areas, so keep that in mind.
We were due for a snowy winter, well here it is, gotta play the hand we are dealt with getting after the Perch and Crappies on the Big Devil. Try to travel in tandem and go out in groups. No fish is worth a life.
ATTENTION!
Just given a report that a vehicle did go through the ice yesterday, the preliminary report did not include a location but be careful when you are out there.
Good Luck…
CATCH MORE FISH…
and…
