Willard Bay - 02/02/2019

[RavenBlackbird]

Where: Willard Bay

Willard has been on my 'to fish on the ice' list this year and seeing the warm temperatures coming made me realize that it was now or never. We accessed the ice at Eagle Beach and walked easily over to the North Marina inlet channel.

When: 7:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Fish Caught: 0

I had a BIG catfish on from a deadstick on the bottom, but it came up the hole tail first which means it may have been foul hooked. I tried to grab the tail with my hand to land it, but it slipped off my hand and then my line broke. [crazy] We did see a lot of fish on the finders, but other than the one fish we had NO bites. We were fishing in 10-15 FOW.

Baits/Lures: Kastmaster jig, floating jig, jig heads with green glow tube jigs and gizzilla crazy glow bugs.

Ice Condition: solid 5" all the way out. The channel is open water, but I was able to walk within 10' of it. There was about 1/4" - 1/2" of water on top of the ice. There was a lot of melting as the weather was warm.

Weather: 40F and windy! The wind was about 8 MPH and made it hard to stay long.
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[wiperhunter2]

Willard is tough in the Winter while ice fishing, I always feel successful when I catch even one fish there. Cats love to roll after their hooked, so it could be that it just wrapped the line around its body and that might be way it did not want to come up heads first. It's hard to ice fish there in the wind but I'd call that a success just getting one fish almost on the ice. []
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[doitall5000]

Very nice write up! I to want a ice trip at willard, maybe I should bring my skates.
What does the south side look like? Any chance to get out to the rock piles? Love to find the rock reefs and soak some bait.
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[RavenBlackbird]

Yes, bring skates! It was icy. If you have ice cleats, I would take them with you.

I only hit the north marina so I can't really speak to the south side. I did meet up with a guy this morning who said that he had been to the SW corner several times and there was 8" of ice.

With the warm weather if you are going to hit Willard, I recommend doing it sooner than later!
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[doitall5000]

Your right, just looked at 5 days all above freezing and each day rain....
If anyone looks let me know please.
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[wiperhunter2]

I can't give you any first hand info about current conditions at the South marina but when we were there a couple of weeks back, the ice in the channel was in very poor condition, it would not surprise me if it was open water in the channel now. You might be able to access the area you want to fish a little South of the marina by the campground but I sure can't tell you that for sure, so hopefully someone else will know.
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[FishSlayerJT]

same report for the south marina. ice is bad in the channel. we fished at night and had a few fish looking but no bites. drilled a ton of holes. Fished the rock piles. ice was plenty thick and had that perfect 1/4 of hard snow on top for grip but its probably all ruined now. hope it stays, i plan to hit the south and west channel, if possible
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[FatBiker]

Fished the SW corner Thursday. Great ice but poor fishing and the road was terrible.
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