Sunday, January 29, 2012

We started pulling out private houses on Wednesday and we have been pulling anyone who wants to go out since then. We had a new crack on the main road on Friday morning but we made a small detour and put a bridge out and it did not cause any problems. We had all the rental houses rented this weekend and ALL of them caught fish. Quite honestly, I do not remember the walleye fishing being this good this late in the season EVER.

We are catching more big walleyes than slot fish, but we also saw some people with a good mix( 50/50 mix). One person who has fished at Agate Bay for at least 30 years said they had NEVER pulled the lines up at night, but on Friday night they pulled them up at 2:30 just so they could get some sleep. I won't say everyone did that good, but it was very good.

We are getting some nice perch in around 27-30 feet around the gravel/mud transition and on the deeper break from 28-32 feet.The numbers are not huge yet, but the average size is good, not the huge quantities of little ones I hear about elsewhere.

The fishing right now reminds me of mid to late December. If you can, you should try to get up here for some of it while it lasts. Since some of the houses will not go out due to the late year, the pressure and noise is way down. Now if we could just get the idiots to slow down we could really enjoy our time on the lake.

We had a late cancellation on a 14 hole premier ice lodge for this weekend so if your group is looking for some fun, give us a call. The section on our website about "Fishhouse Rentals" gives the features on these houses and they are deluxe and really nice for couples, families, or just a bunch of guys. I KNOW you will like them. I also have a few standard 6 hole houses which are very nice with tongue and groove paneling and 4 bunks.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

We put the rental houses out yesterday and it went very well. We have houses from 23' on the rocks to 30' in the mud. We still have some openings for this weekend so give us a call. We have standard house with 4,6, or 8 holes and our premier ice cabins and lodges with 10 or 14 holes. See the Fishhouse Rental section of our web site.

We will begin pulling private houses out to our normal spots including Walleye Drive, Lake St., and Perch Parkway today. The ice where we are placing houses is 17" thick and there is a little snow for banking. The bite has continued to be very good for the people who have ventured out. We are allowing vehicle traffic on all of our roads.

Monday, January 23, 2012

The cold weather really helped a lot. It healed our crack so well that it did not move or open up even with the strong SE wind on Sat. and Sun..We expect to have our rental houses all out by Tuesday and begin pulling private houses out on the other side of the crack on Wednesday.

The ice out on the other side is about 17 inches and very good ice without rough spots. We are getting snow today so, hopefully, banking will not be so hard. The walleye  bite has been good along Agate Bay Reef. This weekend was very good for Big walleyes and not as good for slot fish, but this year has really been good for a mix of big and slot fish. They  are catching perch out in deeper water along the gravel/mud break in 27-29 feet along Perch Parkway.

Wednesday, Jan. 18.2012

We will only be pulling houses to the rocks inside of the crack. We can get to about 17 feet on the west side of the north portion of Agate Bay Reef. It is what we call Archers Ave..  This area is north of the resort.

There are also small rock piles south of the resort that we can reach. We will allow driving vehicles for anyone with a house out, but they must stay inside of the crack and just drive to and from their house.

Otherwise, it will be 4 wheelers only this weekend. You should be able to reach Walleye Drive, Lake St., and Perch Parkway by 4 wheeler. We will put out a bridge across the crack for 4 wheelers.

Most of our ice is 15 inches, but in the crack there is till some 5 inch ice. Also, there was still a large band of open water all along the north end on Tuesday. As long as there is still open water in spots and the ice in the crack is still much thinner than the surrounding area, there is still too big a chance of something opening up. I know of at least one vehicle and one 4 wheeler that have gotten into trouble in the last few days on the north and south sides of the lake.

I think this cold weather has helped a lot. I expect to pull across the crack sometime next week. The ice should be consistent by then. The lake should be frozen across and we will hopefully not have the large cracks we have seen so far this year. I expect to still have cracks this year like usual, but we have big bridges to handle that.

Sunday, Jan.15, 2012

The strong SSE wind today opened an 8 foot crack in the area of bad ice which is about 1/3 mile off shore so our access is closed until that either heals or gets pushed back together by a west or northwest wind. Our ice is still coming good and with the cold weather this week, we should heal up some of our bad areas. I do not know if we will be able to pull next weekend and if we can, we will probably not be driving cars or trucks. I do not think the open water fron last Thursday will be strong enough yet.You would have to have a 4 wheeler or snowmobile or ride along with the truck.

Fishing this weekend was very good. Walleyes bit well in 18-22 feet on jigging spoons and a good portion of them were slot fish. People who went deeper did well on perch with good average size. It was not a ton of small ones like I have heard of in other spots on the lake.

Keep wishing for cold temps with no wind!!!

Friday, Jan. 13, 2012

We have been out checking the ice and marking the top of Agate Bay Reef. The ice inside of the bad spot and outside of the bad spot is 10-12 inches. The rough area where we had open water about 10 days ago is very rough and has about 6-7 inches of ice on it. It is passable but you will not set any speed records over it. We have marked roads for 4 wheelers to fish near the reef. If you are going out either on a 4 wheeler or walking, you MUST talk to us first. We had open water is an area on Wed. and yesterday and we do not want you near there. Again, you must talk to us first before going out!!!!!

The good news is that the ice along Walleye Drive looks very good. We have not checked out by Perch Parkway but it looks good. We will be marking more areas next week and working on the rough areas getting out to the reef. At this time, we can not get to most of Archers and Moon Reef and it may be a while before we can.

If you want to fish along the reef, it is accessable.

Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012

Well we have good news and bad news. The good news is that we can not see any open water in front of us anymore. The main ice pack blew in over the weekend and only left a narrower patch of open water about 1/4 mile out. It ran the full width in front of the resort as far north and south as we could see. This froze over with really chunky ice and has not broken up, even with the warm weather today.

The bad news is that I do not think there is more than 3 or 4 inches of ice in that area considering how mild the weather has been.  Really though we are much better off than we were a week ago. At least we do not see open water.

If it is not broken up by Friday, I will go out and see how much ice there is in the thin area, but I do not think our access will be open this weekend. We still need a lot of cold weather to have the ice in the thin area catch up with most of the ice out there

The bath house will be open this weekend if anyone wants to come up and access on the south end where the ice is thicker.

THINK COLD AND BE SAFE!!!!!