The forecast is looking good for making ice. We are hoping that we will be on the ice early December! We have been driving half tons on the ice as early as December 10th in years past. Lets keep hopping for cold temperatures and early ice! We are currently booking any reservations for on ice sleepers starting December 22nd, 2017. Guided Sno Bear outings should start sooner.
We are adding guided trips in a 2018 Sno Bear. Half Day $400 Full day $600. Call and schedule your trip today. Here is a picture from up in the Boundary Waters! Caught some 12-15 inch crappies!
While we are waiting for some Ice here are two pictures from recently. One is me catching some small mouth bass with my boy. The other is from when I was up in the Boundary Waters. We got into some 12-14 inch crappies up on the Boundary waters canoe area. The weather was fantastic. We did have a few bear intrusions at camp. We had to scare them off a few different times. The last night they sure where hungry came into camp twice within minutes of chasing them out. Anyways the fishing was fun caught the crappies in 15ft-20ft. The water temperature was in the Mid 60s while in the Boundary Waters. Back in the Annandale area water temperature is hovering around that 60 degree mark. We should be cooling down at least 1-2 degrees a day from here on out.
We will be starting our rental season on Upper Red Lake. Our goal this year is to keep houses in remote locations away from the crowds. We are also exploring some special pricing and offering guided day trips for our customers in the sleeper rental shacks to remote areas of the lake. I will have some pricing soon on these options.
It has been an interesting week! The Annandale area we pulled our houses off the ice and are now just doing Hook and Go rentals meaning customers are taking the ice houses up north to lakes like Upper Red Lake, lake winnibigoshish, Leech Lake, Kabetogama, Lake of the woods and many more. We are still heading out on the Ice with foot traffic in the Annandale area. It seems for customers driving north 2 hours they are finding 24-30 inches of ice depending on the lake. As far as fishing out on the ice the warm weather has been bringing in limits of crappies, Perch, and Sun Fish. A few Walleye are being caught in the Annandale area. The pictures below are from the last two weeks. The Perch came out of Lake Winnibigoshish and some of the Walleyes came out of Lake Sylvia by Annandale. It looks like we have about 3 weeks of our season left to get in on a ice house rental. If you would like a special up north guided trip let me know and we can make arrangments for Upper Red Lake or Lake Winnibigoshish.
We have been making good ice these last few days with little snow on the ice travel is easy getting around. We are seeing 16-20 inches of ice. Last weekend we had one house set up for Walleyes, one hook and go rental to the ice fishing extravaganza on gull lake, and the other two set up for pan fish. We are on two different lakes. The grand castle picked up 4 walleyes, 2 pike, and 1 crappie this spot was a little on the slow side. The guys said the fish are there on the camera mix of sun fish crappies pike and walleyes but not to active. The other houses set up for pan fish one house caught about a dozen crappies and the other house caught 15 keeper sun fish along with large mouth bass and some smaller pike. This time of year fishing tends to slow down a little bit. I expect this Friday night to be a good bite as the barometric pressure will be falling into Saturday!
The pictures below see the weather forecast. I was out making the rounds on Monday checking on ice houses and got to wet a line for a hour and caught a 14 inch crappie along with a 24 inch pike that made a great lunch. Those two hit one after another around 10:00 A.M. I still have one 8 x 16 open for Friday night and with the barometric pressure falling if anyone is thinking about ice fishing Friday night will be a good night for it!
Fishing has slowed last week but customers are still catching fish. The warm up has melted most of the snow out on the lakes we are finding 14-18 inches of ice on the lakes we are on. We are transitioning into a new lake today with customers and should have a fresh report coming soon. The pictures below are from last week customers and one from when I was out pre-fishing spots. I got into a few crappies and sun fish. With the warm weather and the melting snow the ice is slick so we suggest bringing your ice cleats. We will be targeting crappies this week also with the occasional walleye and pike passing by.
The ice on Upper Red Lake we are finding around 20+ inches of ice. There is a fair amount of snow on the ice so plowed spots are recommended. If you need a plowed spot let me know I can send you in the direction needed. We have been fishing 3.5 miles out on Upper Red Lake. Fishing slowed down the last few days and is starting to pick up. We do have rental shacks available on Upper Red Lake with Wippers contact me for further details.
The Ice in the Annandale area I am finding 12-15 inches of Ice. We currently have rentals on 3 different lakes in the Annandale area. We have one house set up for walleyes and the other houses are set up for crappies. The crappie houses are getting fish and a some bonus blue gills. Tungsten jigs seem to be the ticket. We expect the bite to be fantastic this week with the warm weather. Keep in mind 50% off Monday – Wednesday nights excluding Holidays. The pictures below are from a few of our fishing spots in the last few days.
This is our last report for Upper Red Lake we still have a few houses finishing up there rentals this week. The fishing has been good some days are better than others but even the slower days we are still getting fish. Seems anything that glows bright pink has been getting the job done on Upper Red. We have had some cold temps and the fish are still being caught. The pictures below are from this weekend. Upper Red Lake has around 19 inches of ice and a fair amount of snow. Off road travel can be difficult so use plowed spots for your hook and go rentals or tire chains are suggested. Upper Red Lake is supposed to got 4-8 more inches of snow Monday into Tuesday.
Today I got to go out and chase some crappies down in the Annandale area took me about a hour to find some fish and missed the hot bite but managed to catch a dozen from 8:30-9:30 a.m. If I would have been set up by 7:30 the numbers would have been closer to that 20-30 fish being caught as we missed prime time! The lures pictured below are what we are using for pan fish tipped with crappie minnows. Was worms and red spikes will work good also. Annandale has a forecast to get a few inches of snow this is needed as we have no snow for banking our houses. We have around 12-13 inches of ice and are making around half an inch a night.
Over the last week we had a steady bite on Upper Red Lake. The bite slowed a little over new years and has continued to pick back up. Some houses have done better than others. Upper Red Lake has 18 inches of ice we are finding in most spots. We have a bit of snow on the ice we will plow you to the ice house and out. We are outfitting out of Hillmans in Waskish MN.
In the Annandale area we finding 10-12 inches of ice. We will be adding around a inch of ice a day over the next few days the temps are working in our favor to get the big shacks out next week. Fishing reports coming in are good in the Annandale area.
Pictures below are from Upper Red Lake. We look forward to getting on some lakes down in the Annandale area and finding those big crappies!
The bite is on fire now catching fish around the clock. Limiting out in about a hour. The bite seems to be better at night. We are two miles out and the ice sheet is looking good! Jim with Wippers posted this picture of his limit he caught last night. He said little sleep rattle reels all night long! Book your rental now before we book up 320-310-9089
