Lake Condition

[Geoff]

Saw plenty of people out on the ice this morning fishing.

[badger88]

I would guess the ice will still be plenty thick. It still gets down below freezing every night and snow acts as pretty good insulation. You may want to cut a hole and check the thickness 10' from shore just to be safe but anything over 3 inches is safe to fish on.

[Haris122]

I was up there yesterday. First I went to lake 21, a good couple 6 or so people and cars were there, so I went to lake 28, and there were probably twice that many people there. After a little indecision I wound up going to Lake 37, which I had all to myself since there's no trout there. Cut away a total of 8 holes and got action in 3 of them. In 1 I was getting light strikes like from Bluegill, but they weren't getting hooked, just cutting off pieces of worm with each strike it seems. The other 2 holes took a while to get going. First I thought I had a snag, then a good but sluggish fish. It turned out to be a small kid fishing rod, then to my surprise I caught 2 Largemouth Bass. One on a plain roostertail of all things, then the other on a kastmaster type lure with a worm on it. Was fishing live bait to increase odds, yet in the end the plain roostertail was the first thing that produced. Neither bass was big, first one maybe 11-12" second probably 13" or barely more, but I'm just glad I finally got something ice fishing. Now if I can just figure out what and how to work other species too. But I wouldn't be sad if things thaw and I have to wait to learn that next winter. It wasn't exactly warm most of the day, but once the clouds parted, the ice around the holes was getting slushy/rotten within not more than an hour or two. I think the thickness around the holes by the end of the day was around 4-5" on average, but it looks like ice fishing will be coming to a close real soon.

On an unrelated note I had gone to Simpson lake on Saturday and it was surprisingly thick there. Probably another 2" thicker at least, than Lake 37.

Let me see if I can upload the pictures from my phone.

[Haris122]

Turns out uploading the pics of the 2 bass is too much of a pain in the rear right now.

[Haris122]

Let me see about the pics now.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1/1622786_10202123439022063_653679424_n.jpg?dl=1

https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/1618612_10202123439102065_757974470_n.jpg?dl=1

[Justin92297]

Pretty good fish for the middle of February. I hope the lakes are all thawed out by this weekend

[Old plug]

the amount of ice on those lake may result in a fish kill because they are so shallow.

[Haris122]

Pretty good fish for the middle of February. I hope the lakes are all thawed out by this weekend

Yeah they certainly were bigger than what I expected. I thought a medium sized Bluegill was all I stood a chance of getting interested. I don't know if I want them to thaw out now, seeing how next week is supposed to get down into highs of barely above freezing. Cause if they do, I'm guessing only thing that will come of it is that the lake will become covered by too thin a layer of ice to ice-fish, but still too icy to fish much if any of it as open water.

the amount of ice on those lake may result in a fish kill because they are so shallow.

What's a good safe depth? I thought I remembered reading like 10 feet and deeper over 10% of the lake. I can say for certain lake 37 isn't lacking in depth. Certain holes I jigged seemed to be in water twice that. But then on the flip side there's lakes like 26 or 22 that would seem barely 5-6 feet even. 26 just in general is tiny.

[Old plug]

well if there isa kill you will see it and smell it shortly

[Haris122]

I checked out one of my regular lakes (Unger Lake) like a week or so back after the ice had melted and I counted at least 20 dead fish. Like 5-6 gizzard shad, 2 of which were pretty big shad, at 10". One mid size and one small. Saw one 2 foot Drum that looked like it would've been pretty good fighter, somewhere in the vicinity of 10-12 sliver or bighead carp, most a good 2 feet if not more, and of all things a Paddlefish, about 4 feet long with paddle. All dead. Didn't believe it before when I heard those might be even there. It was probably the only one though. Shame it died. Didn't see a single truly predatory fish dead. Wonder if that's cause there is none there left, or cause this ice is even more so rough on the plankton feeders. Either way, I'm starting to worry what all that ice did to the fish population at that place. Hope it didn't have a serious impact, cause I don't know how frequently the Meramec floods over enough for fish to repopulate that place sufficiently to make for decent fishing.