Latest fishing report from Ace guide service.

[Ace]

Hey all you hard water guys,

After a pretty good weekend of fishing, things have really slowed down since Sunday evening. I have had one bite in 2 days and that was a Perch about 46 hours ago.

So I have desided to take a couple days off and enjoy this wonderful winter weather we are having here in the northland.  It was 36 BELOW ZERO here on Tuesday morning and we are expecting 29 BELOW ZERO for tonights low temp. The high for Wednesday is expected to be around 12 BELOW ZERO here in the Tower area.  I can't wait to go out and bask in the sun tomorrow. :)

Ice conditions have improved some in recent days. The slush we had has started to freeze up with these extremly cold temps of late. It is still difficult to travel anywhere by truck unless you are on a plowed road. I would not attemp it myself, unless I was in a very large 4wheel drive with lots of ground clearence.

We have about 20 inches of good ice
in the McKinley park area. It can vary some, however the ice pack is at least 16 inches everywhere I have fished in Big bay.  Small glow jigs and spoons were very effective for me all last week and into the last weekend.  Small Pike suckers and fat head minnows were working well in my shack.

The cold weather should shut things down for at least a couple of days. I plan on hitting it hard again after this ungodly weather passes on Friday.  Look for the Walleyes in deeper water. I would concentrate on depths between 25 and 35ft. There have been some fish in the shallows of late, however as is the case most of the time, it is not a very consistent bite.

"Ace"

[Ace]

We had 42 below zero here at my place yesterday morning.  Makes a guy not want to go outside to go fishing.  Not much going on as far as the Walleyes are concerned.  I did get out for about 2 hours yesterday afternoon, mostly just to check on my shack.  I had a line down for about an hour, without any action.

It does appear that the cold has helped our slush problem a little. Some of the exposed areas are in much better shape than they were a week ago.  I would still recommend that you stay on the plowed roads.

I watched a couple of guys trying to pull their fish house yesterday. They had 3 trucks stuck at once and they were really struggling to get them out of the slush and the deep wet snow.

"Ace"


 

[Ace]

 
We just had another 4 inches of snow overnight, up here in the cold northland. Fortunately the extreemly cold weather we saw last week, has finaly left the area.

The fishing is still very slow for the Walleyes, however the Pike action has been pretty good all winter. I get most of mine on tip-ups, but I also like to jig for them.  I use either
medium suckers or frozen smelt. It really doesn't seem to matter which you use, as they both catch a lot of fish.

Shallow weed flats in 3 to 6ft are always good for numbers, however I always find the larger Pike along the shoreline breaks and on mainlake points.  Boulders are always a key element when finding Pike along the breaks.  It always helps to know the water you're fishing, when it comes to finding these scattered boulders.

Mainlake points that fall into deep water are always a good location to fish.  Points with boulders on them are great locations to fish.  Pike love to use the large rocks/boulders to ambush their prey.  I prefer using a jig when fishing on top of the points, so I can work the bait into the open areas between the rocks.

Drill lots of holes, so you can move around on the point, it will really increase the number of Pike you catch. 

The tip-ups are at their best on the weed flats, because Pike are more likely to be crusing around in the weeds.  Eventualy they will run into your tip-ups, as long as you spread them out into a wide pattern.     

"Ace"

[Woody]

Thanks for the update Ace!