Hello Sportsfans and welcome to the weekly post here at Ballard’s Resort.  If word has not yet drifted your way, YES, we have dropped the green flag and started another season of ice fishing adventures here on Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods.

Exciting!  Always good to get an early start…  Nick and the gang had the shacks moving early last week and we put our first groups on the ice last Thursday.  An early challenge has been the ice conditions.  Not a lack of ice per say, but the actual surface shape of the ice.

During the initial freeze-up on the south shore we incurred prevailing north-western breezes that stacked ice / broke ice / stacked ice / broke ice continuously.  The end result brought lots of shelf ice both above and below the surface of the existing freeze.

So what are we working with?  Right now we’re running with about 12-14 inches of ice.  Up-side?  Down-side?  We can obviously get around with the ATV’s and passenger haulers.  But the amount of time it takes to groom a trail, lay out areas to set houses, and get positioned to travel has been quite tedious.  Bottom line our guys are getting the job done, but it’s been no easy task making trails to get to the fish.

The bite?  As mentioned we just started a couple days ago.  Traditionally, Justin T. and the boys from the Faribault area roll in early season to “test” the fishing for us near the south shore.  Once again they made the trek up and were here to give chase.

Mixed results…  Our guides have now stretched the houses from 16ft of water on out to about 27ft.  This puts us anywhere from 1/2 mile to 4 ½ miles off-shore.

Shallow water fishing has been tricky at best and not as productive as one would think.  Reason being…  Again it’s been a battle with the shelf ice that’s actually moving around under the solid sheet that we’re sitting on.  Sounds weird…  But it’s happening.  You drill some holes, start fishing, and then whammo a chunk of shelf ice moves through and plugs your ice holes.

With that being said…  It appears as though we have found better fishing further out in the deeper haunts.  Yesterday 26-27 feet was fair by LOW standards, and most of our anglers had success.  The catch has been predominately all saugers with the occasional walleye mixed in the bunch.

As we move through the week…  So go the fish houses…  On the move…  The chase is just getting started…
Set the hook!!