Anyone been up in the past couple of days? It's hasn't been over freezing up there in over a week. That dang thing should have capped if the W--D didn't mess it up. Really trying to plan out my post Christmas fishing and hoping something besides the Slow Mud is froze up!
Thanks for any info-
F4F
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I went to the marina yesterday and there is no ice yet. Just limited ice in the bays but no ice at the marina. I also had hoped for ice before Christmas and the New Year before school starts again but I doubt that is going to happen. Mud Creek has 8' and I understand CCE has fishable ice. Not sure about Soldier Creek.
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I fished chicken creek thursday and friday. The ice that was there last week has thickened to 6-7" everywhere I drilled a hole. The entire bay capped probably wednesday night. The snow storm on tuesday fell on open water. I didn't even get close on thursday, but by friday afternoon people were starting to venture out onto it. Before I left on friday I snuck out and drilled a hole and it is only about 3". Like the previous poster stated it hasn't really been above freezing for at least a week and the bulk of the bay went from open water to 3" in only two days. It is certainly fishable by now, but I wouldn't be taking a sled or wheeler out just yet.
Now for the report. Thursday was great, I really got into them, including a 26" pig, I had 4 others over the slot and iced around 35 in total. The fish were biting pretty concistently the whole morning. I was off the ice by noon. Friday was a little slower, only 1 fish over the slot at 22 1/2" and maybe 20 fish by noon. Probably 10 fish in the first hour and 8 more between 11:00 - 12:00 and only 2 fish between 8:30 and 11:00. It was a little strange to have a flurry like that so late in the day. Several of the afternoon fish I actually saw swimming just below the ice so I reeled up and "sight" fished them looking down thru the hole. It was pretty cool. One fish was even ripped straight from the water on the hook set, not much of a chance to turn and fight.
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Great report. I'm going to try to get up there this next week. What were they hitting on?
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nice report fwp. looks like its going to be a chicken creek weekend.
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I've gone almost completely to hand tied jigs. White tubes are still the go to bait, but I get the sense that those fish see 10,000 white tubes dangled in front of them between the fall open water and ice season so I've gone away from them a little. Don't get me wrong I never leave home without them and you can almost always pick up a few fish with them, especially early in the morning, but after 9:30 or so when the fish get a little more pickey I think it pays to change up a little. Give them something along the same lines; that is to say a 2 1/2" 3 1/2" minnow imatation (best in white), but not exactly what everyone else is showing them.
Most days if you are on the ice by day break you can pick up 10 or so by 9:30, but the real difference maker in one trip being better than another is the ability to pick up 2-3 fish an hour after the morning flurish. People with sonar will tell you that fish still come by on a semi-regular basis after the morning hours, they just seem to get lip locked. Being able to "finess" a few of the passer bys will make all the difference in how many exclamation points are used when you report your trip to your fellow BFTers.
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