DEC 6th REPORT

[Rob Manthei]

Heading out tomorrow and thursday to check ice conditions....if anyone else has something to report...let us know.

[Mark Benson]

Rob:

Been hearing of some smaller lakes that had frozen over prior to Thanksgiving, also one shallow lake that had guys on it before as well. I really haven't heard of anything going on since the snow though, other than reports of the hope of this really cold weather freezing down the new slush that is wet to the top solid. Was hoping to try last week before the snow came, but held off once that happened.

Mark

[Rob Manthei]

I checked a lot of ice around the area yesterday(Thursday). I basically found out that lakes that snow cover, the ice isn't really safe in my opinion. 2 swings with the Jiffy Mille Lacs chisel and I was thru. Lakes that had ice where the snow cover was blown off had 3 to 4" inches of ice up to 75 yards out. Trout lake was wide open. I felt safe fishing in a couple areas, but not every where. Lost had decent ice in the NW corner, Most of Little St. was fishable, Big St. was a little sketchy in front of our place, I didn't go out pass 100 feet....ice was soft under the snow. Last night it dipped to -1, so I am sure that helped, as with tonight and Saturday. I hope it makes ice, I am fishing with Gillespie next week...!!

Good luck and be safe!

[Mark Benson]

Rob:

Torky and I fished last night up on the Mannie Chain, didn't fish far from shore. Tork was able to ice three fish Sat. night (kept none) from one of our old hotspots, one too large and two too small along with a number of dropped baits. He was using shiners. Sunday night we had one flag, caught and kept a 16" fish and only fished fatheads as bait was pretty scarce on Sunday. Ice we were on was anywhere from 3.5" to 6.5 inches.

I was hearing that the larger Flambeau chain lakes were partially open, Tom was partially open as was Trout like you reported.

Mark

Hopefully this next cold snap will