Hayward, Wisconsin & Chequamegon Bay Ice Fishing Report 12-26-13
Merry Christmas! We hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends (and lots of presents)! In case you haven’t heard, this week brought more big snows to northern Wisconsin. Some areas around Ashland reported over 30″ of fresh powder by Wednesday. Chequamegon Bay went from very fishable to very questionable over night, and it will be a few days before we have a good bead on ice conditions out there. Fear not however… Josh is still out there plugging away, and he took the opportunity to focus on our inland lakes over the past few days. On Sunday, Josh, John Darwin, and Vana Korhonen from Iron River spent an evening fishing walleyes and caught some nice fish up to 23″. They focused on weedlines in 15′ to 20′ of water and used tip-ups baited with sucker minnows. Josh reported 12″ of ice with no slush and a foot of snow on top of the ice.
On Monday, Josh and John went to another inland lake in the Hayward area and focused on crappies. They found lots of willing biters in the 8″ to 11″ range while fishing deep basins in 20′ to 30′ of water. Josh and John were fishing small tungsten jigs tipped with Jr Jig Tails, and glow white was the top producer. On this particular lake, Josh encountered a few scattered slush pockets with 12″ of ice and 12″ of snow on top. This is just the report all ice fishing panfish fanatics have been waiting for. Get out there, and get after them folks!!!
Josh was back after walleyes on Christmas day with Acorn Armagost and Kevin Jungst from Iron River as well as Kevin’s son Jason from Iowa. As we saw last summer, dudes from Iowa can catch walleyes! After opening presents and participating in holiday festivities, they spent the evening fishing weedlines in 15′ to 20′ of water and iced some very nice walleyes up to 22″. Tip-ups with suckers were again a lethal combination, and it’s obvious that Josh is on to a consistent pattern right now. Ice condidions changed a bit after the big snow, and Josh reported about 9″ of ice with no slush and 15″ to 20″ of snow on top of the ice. Those are some great looking fish and a few nice fillets for a Christmas fish fry! By the way… How did Acorn avoid getting his picture taken?
Josh will be checking ice conditions on Chequamegon Bay this week, and we’ll have a report posted for you soon. Happy shoveling all you northlanders, and Happy Holidays everyone!