Bemidji area report

[DarterGuy]

Ice thickness in the Bemidji area varies greatly from lake to lake. Anywhere from 6-13" on many of the lakes on the area depending on snow cover. ATV travel is very nice now, even with a amount of slush on some lakes. People are starting to drive on a few local lakes as well.

Fishing is phenomenal right now. Walleyes, perch, crappies, and bluegills are all pretty easy to gather in right now. For walleyes look in the 15' range adjacent to weeds and/or a nice slope. Sandy bottom was the ticket over the weekend, with many fish coming during midday roaming sand flats with weeds nearby.

Good luck and be careful out there!

[Randy Kaar]

thanks for the report!

randy aka bh

[MnMike]

Fianlly got out, fished Thurs/Fri/Sat and had some excelllent fishing. Fished Plantaganet Thurs and Fri evenings. Thurs we fished for about 2 hrs and managed to keep 5 walleyes from 16-20 inches, threw back a few small ones. Caught a few perch as well, nothing to big. We were fishing in about 19 ft of water. Fri went back to the same area, but found 17 ft of water and hammered the eyes. We were on the ice about 4pm and planned to fish late but by 8pm we had our 12 and were heading off the ice. Glow green and pink were the hot colors, fishing about 6 inches off the bottom. Sat. we headed out for some Crappies, hit our favorite lil lake and before we had our 4 lines in we had 2 12inch slabs in the bucket. 2 hours later we had our limit.
Ice was anywhere from 7-10 iches with a lot of snow covering it. We did see a couple of guys with a huge portable have some issues. We watched them as they setup, one guy shoveled a 12x12 sq right down to the ice. Threw their house up and about an hour later one of them walked over and asked if we were having flooding problems. We grinned and said no. I'm guessing 99% of you know if you have alot of snow on early ice esp. don't shovel all the snow off, leave your self a couple of inches of snow to prevent or at least lessen the flooding. Later on about an hour after dark i was out having a smoke and they were taking it down and for some reason they took out the double sunflower they had in there and were very slow to take the house down. 45 minutes later we could hear them cussing, the flooding had frozen and there base was now frozen under two inches of ice. So another point if your flooding either leave your heater going to the end, move ur house off the holes right away, or if your like me just get it down fast. :) I also ran across the reel weeds/structure on a string....hmmm....i'll post my thoughts under the topic.
All in all agreat and amusing start to the ice fishing season. Heading back out in the Bemidji area first part of Jan and i am thinking of hitting the DL area this wknd. Good luck everyone and happy hookin'

[Realtree]

Great report MnMike, and what a great start to the season!