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Finally made it up to the berry Friday. Weather was predicted to be windy and partly cloudy which was what we mostly got. Lots of sun in the morning but as the afternoon went on the breeze picked up and clouds started moving in. Fished from 730-300 and got to the truck just as the gusts starting coming in. Ice conditions were great. Only hit a few small slush pockets on our way over towards renegade. Ice was around 17in total where we fished with the top 3 being cloudy then 3-4in slush layer with 11-12in of solid clear. Could definitely be messy when the temps don't get low enough to hold that top layer. Fishing was slow with ton of lookers and only a few aggressive ones. I ended up with a dozen on the ice. Nothing over 18in or so. It was nice hitting the hard deck with Jeff and meeting Alan for the 1st time. Just wish the wind would have been less so we could have spent more time out of the tents BS'ing. Was kind of nice not seeing hardly any signs of pressure ridges this year. Not to often haws point isn't stacked up a bit.
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Great meeting you guys and fishing with the group. Action came in spurts and white tube jigs did the trick for me. We hit a big slush area just before Hawes that required some pushing and pulling to get out, my 1st experience with the slush. Was good there were 2 of us to get everything out and moved onto good ice.
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thanks for the report. Always tough this time of year with the slush layer. Ill be happy when we are back on open water !
Come on Spring
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(02-28-2021, 05:20 PM)Muskyon46 Wrote: Finally made it up to the berry Friday. Weather was predicted to be windy and partly cloudy which was what we mostly got. Lots of sun in the morning but as the afternoon went on the breeze picked up and clouds started moving in. Fished from 730-300 and got to the truck just as the gusts starting coming in. Ice conditions were great. Only hit a few small slush pockets on our way over towards renegade. Ice was around 17in total where we fished with the top 3 being cloudy then 3-4in slush layer with 11-12in of solid clear. Could definitely be messy when the temps don't get low enough to hold that top layer. Fishing was slow with ton of lookers and only a few aggressive ones. I ended up with a dozen on the ice. Nothing over 18in or so. It was nice hitting the hard deck with Jeff and meeting Alan for the 1st time. Just wish the wind would have been less so we could have spent more time out of the tents BS'ing. Was kind of nice not seeing hardly any signs of pressure ridges this year. Not to often haws point isn't stacked up a bit.
Sounds like a good trip Matt. Wish I could have been there. I'm heading back up to Rockport tomorrow for another go at some perch. Intel from this AM (talked to Curt who is on the ice right now) says the edges and ice are holding up very well. Temp at the launch this AM was 0*F. Forecast for this week is severe clear every day and highs in the 40's. Gonna be great. 
Bob Hicks, from Utah
I'm 81 years young and going as hard as I can for as long as I can.
"Free men do not ask permission to bear arms."
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(03-01-2021, 03:56 PM)Troutster Wrote: (02-28-2021, 06:09 PM)2knots Wrote: Great meeting you guys and fishing with the group. Action came in spurts and white tube jigs did the trick for me. We hit a big slush area just before Hawes that required some pushing and pulling to get out, my 1st experience with the slush. Was good there were 2 of us to get everything out and moved onto good ice.
Hey, thanks for the report. What got stuck in the slush? Snowmobile or SnowDog? If it was a snowmobile, do you know how long is the track? I’m trying to decide on a sled and 154 and 163 seem pretty common. The 163’s are REALLY long.
I was on a Ski Doo Summit older vintage with a 136" 1.5" paddle track.... Rest of the story was the size of the sled X-200 with Alan sitting on the front of it, full of my gear and Alan's sled behind that... We had a snowmobile failure to start, so we had everything behind my sled and like Alan said he was right behind my track and I stayed on the throttle too long as it was, I was afraid I had soaked him, but I didn't want to stop in that bowl of soup, but I had too... Like Alan said I was very glad to have help with getting that sled out of there... I unhooked the snowmobile and it pulled right out, but getting the X-200 out, that was a chore... Very glad we had a frozen track close to us, so we could get on top of the slush and get going again... Rest of the way sticking to the track made for a good trip, but I was afraid we would be in for a big job to get out... Luckily with Alan's help it wasn't too bad... Anyway snowmobile did fine, it was the oversized sled and pulling a passenger on the sled that probably caused us to get stuck... Oh I had Alan move to the back of the sled for the second attempt to get to the ramp and by having weight on the back of the sled, the nose came up so it pulled over the snow and slush instead of plowing through it... Makes a lot of difference on the drag that you create for the snowmobile... Lessons learned... Later Jeff
PS.... Don't worry about the snowmobiles they are your best slush option, this was a loading issue.
When things get stressful think I'll go fish'en and worry about it tomorrow!
