A bitter cold 0° at about 8 o’clock Eastern Time Sunday evening coming off the bay. The forecasted high is 6 above until Thursday. Yipeee!!!! We’re going to have a foot and a half, maybe 2 feet, of ice by the weekend. I couldn’t find anything less than 12”, up to 17”. The thicker ice was around the pressure cracks. It’s frozen slush, so not the rock-hard black ice that surrounds it. Traffic on the bay tapered off as the mercury dropped, as expected. The lack of angling pressure over the next few days is going to make for a good weekend coming up. Not to mention, we’re coming off an ‘I’m not so hungry’ weekend. Lots of tight-lipped fish stories out there. Of course, there are the seasoned perch pros—they could feed everyone in Kipling daily.
Daily, we have inquiries regarding ice south of the narrows of Gladstone. It changes by the minute; shifting ice that’s a foot thick could have a gap that’s only a couple of inches thick. Ice doesn’t just push together; sometimes it opens up and then freezes over, which is very deceiving. Even the most prepared and cautious ice anglers navigating across the frozen mass can have unplanned consequences.
The shop closes at 4 o’clock on Sundays. With time before sunset, Lacy, Red, and Cedar took to the ice to check what’s happening on upper Little Bay de Noc. Every landing we went to looked great, with plenty of parking and pressure cracks to encounter, depending on where you want to go. You could pick a landing to get anywhere without crossing.
Increasing your odds,
-Blade
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