New Town / "River" Area - Saturday, January 28, 2012

FINALLY made it out on the ice.

Of course, with finally came wind gusts to 35 to 40 MPH but hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

Initially the trip was more of ice exploration.  In short, we found the ice to be 10 to 12 inches in most places.  However, there were areas of open water near shore and you could also find areas of 6 to 8 inches of ice near cracks and late forming ice locations.  It will be difficult to know those areas that froze last so the point is, be very mindful of changing ice conditions.  That is always important even on cold winters but it is crucial with this year's conditions.

Fishing was I suppose seen as okay.  Our Friday and Saturday locations were not the greatest.  Each day produced a couple smaller walleye/sauger.  We wanted to move to a different location but with ice conditions somewhat iffy and with wind blowing a mini dust storm off the beach we decided to hang where we were.  Not too often you have sand dunes building instead of snow drifts by the ice house!!

By the way, I challenge any Strikemaster or other serrated curved blade auger to a drill off.  Ice is full of grit!  The Strikemaster chipper blade worked great.

Sunday it was time to move.  We made the move and set up with almost instant success.  The rest of the evening bite was pretty active but it was a quantity over quality situation.  Short and sweet, a person needs to prepare himself for what is about to annoy boat fishermen all year.  The 08-09 and 09-10 year classes are showing up in 10 to 14 inch fashion (most in that 10 to 13 inch range).  We did have a couple bigger fish mixed in but nothing exceeded 18 inches.  Good news is the year classes are bringing life again to Sakakawea.  In the interim, we will be battling the attacks of perch and small walleye for a couple years.  Gotta take the bad with the good.  My brother landed a very nice smallmouth which broke the attack of the 10 inchers.

Jigging and tip-ups were pretty equal.  Depths were 10 to 40 feet.  Very wide range.

Last I heard the guys that stayed last night after I left iced 12 to 14 one pound shiners.  They came in hot and heavy stealing many minnows from their supply.  Would be fun and annoying at the same time!

Tags: ice, saturday, january, new, river, 0, area, town, gotta, finally

Region: New Town / "River" Area

Categories: Fishing