With high temps firmly in the 40s degrees F since last Tuesday and my 2009 fishing license expired as of March 1, my inaugural season of ice fishing seems to have come to a end. Here’s a summary of the cold weather fun:
Days fished: 7
Fish caught: 8 (1 perch, 7 crappie)
Dec 19:
First ice fishing [...]
As a rookie ice fisherman, I’ve been deferring to my more experienced friends to know when to walk on the ice, use a four-wheeler on the ice, or drive on the ice. If I were to ever go out alone, I would make sure I see a lot of people doing something on the [...]
This week, the average daily temperature in Minnesota rises above 30 degrees F and signals the beginning of the end of ice fishing season. Ice thicknesses are still in the 2 ft range, but will start to thin and become dangerous in a matter of weeks. As the season winds down, I thought [...]
Steve, Mark, and I went out to Lake Owasso this afternoon. The air temp wasn’t terribly cold, but it was window. And it started snowing by the time we packed it in.
The fish didn’t like the weather either. We were out from about 2:30 to 5:30 with 9 holes in 3 different [...]
Species: Crappie
Size: 9″, 8″, 8″
Lure used: yellow beaver flick with live minnow
Date: 2/6/2010
Time: 8:00 -10:30am
Body of water: An Iced Over Lake
Location: Somewhere in the North Metro
Weather Conditions: overcast and windy
I went out this morning with my neighbors, Steve and Rob, and one of Rob’s buddies, Greg. Mark had family commitments and couldn’t make it. [...]
A friend of mine read my Fire on Ice post and clarified why it isn’t dangerous to have a fire on the ice.
He explains that fires don’t actually burn that hot at the level of the ice because there isn’t as much air underneath the wood as above it. That coupled with the ash [...]
As I was doing research for my last post, I came upon an article about ice safety. At the end of the article, a reader posted a comment that he’s seen people build fires out on the ice. The commenter couldn’t believe that they would do such a thing. Previous to my [...]
Over the last few months, when I’ve been telling friends and family that I’ve been ice fishing, those that don’t ice fish themselves are astounded to hear that we have a heater in our shelter. Conventional wisdom would dictate that bringing a heater out on the ice would, as one of my friends put [...]
Continue reading about Why It’s Safe to Use a Heater When Ice Fishing
Species: Crappie
Size: 9″, 8″, 8″, 7″
Lure used: hot pink jighead with white plastic grub and live minnows
Date: 1/24/2010
Time: 7:30-11:30am
Body of water: An Iced Over Lake
Location: Somewhere in the North Metro
Weather Conditions: overcast, foggy, drizzly
I got a call from Mark last night saying that he and the neighbors were headed out at 7:30 this morning to [...]
I haven’t been able to get out on the ice in the past few weeks, so I haven’t had any ice fishing stories to tell. However, in talking with my buddy, Dan, he recalled an amazing story that happened to him and one of his friends while ice fishing in Northern Minnesota several years [...]
