I've got a park pass so drove out to Willard on the way to S&E. Pulled the sled out on the only accessible dock on the south side of the north marina and dug a few holes right off the dock. Ice is 2.5 inches. It was .5 on the 7th so it's growing better than a .5 inches a day. should be 4 inches by wednesday if the cold weather holds. Most of WB outside the marina was iced as well with patches of open water here and there. Seemed to be more open water over by the north dike as well.
Fished for about 10 minutes through the holes I dug with no bites. Didn't have the ice fishing clothes with me and was starting to freeze.
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Thanks for the report
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[cool]Did you see all of our holes drilled all over the place? We didn't get one fish outta all of those iceholes, so off to Mantua we went at about 9:00.
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I looked at the pictures your group took and I can see where you were inside the pay-docks. I couldn't see the holes from standing on the lone dock to the east of where you fished. I must have just missed you guys as I got there about 11:30 AM.
The last time, several years ago, that it was deep enough in the marina to fish we did well right in the middle of the marina. I've never done that good in by the docks. Of course that's a brand new dock that extends out a little farther than the old ones used to.
To the west of those docs there's some xmas trees submerged in about 7 feet of water. Did you try that spot? I was thinking there ought to be a few crappie hanging out there.
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[cool]Hey finhunter, thanks for the info regarding the trees submerged in the middle. I had no idea about that. That actually gives me hope and maybe a little nerve to try it again later on. Bassrods (Cliff) ventured out by there but I think he said the ice was only about 2 inches or so, and he headed out towards the little skinny channel before it goes out into the main lake, but he said it was unsafe there and softwater thereafter. Maybe in a week or so that middle area will be safe, maybe just a couple more days...
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I got back about two hours ago from Willard's north marina and drilled a few holes my self and I was measuring 3.5" with a ruler. I arrived about 4:30 PM and started fishing by 4:50 by the mouth of the harbor on the north side in about 21' of water. I had my Aqua-Vu so I decided to use and see what was down there and found that it was a muddy, sticky, bottom there with a decent current, but on fish. After about 40 minutes I decided to leave. but as I was bring up the Aqua-Vu camera slowly between feet 15 and 14 feet spotted what I thought was a wiper so I stop and set the camera at that depth and change to med. ice rod with six pound line. Sure enough there came another five wiper in view of my camera in the next 30 minutes, but no bites.[unsure]
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