Hopefully no ice
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Buddy and I fished just off Voyageurs sat AM for a few hours ended with 6 eyes and several whitefish, was alot of people out but most cleared out by 10am with the tough bite, ice aprox 5-7" and clear and solid shoreline to get on was slushy and ankle to shin high water so waterproof boots are a must, had a buddy down by 172 and it was junk.
Waxxing,
I have lost every little gem that took me years to discover. I had hidden spots for walleye on the fox no one ever fished. Now there is 25 guys there every time I go. Stiles in the spring was a hidden jewel. Now the landowners fence off the property and your elbow to elbow and it lost its fun. I had my opportunity for fun, why shouldn't someone else. Guys should go by the thousands and experience it. Fish it out of existence. Get it out of your system and then move on to the next great bite. Everyone deserves to get into shouting matches with guys that cross your line with every cast, that litter the banks. In a few years and after multiple negative interactions they will stop coming.
They good fishermen will find another spot. The googans will find them and ruin it. Then magically the spots they leave will cycle, recover and get good again.
I don't fault people for wanting to go to easy accessible places to catch fish. But that little marina isn't what it was. It is so overfished now, good luck. I want everyone to go fish it if they can. Get disappointing results and go somewhere else and let it recover for a few years. Just a note, they really don't want you dragging sleds or fishing from the docks. You will get a trespassing ticket if caught. They painted the docks this year and I am sure our sleds scraping the paint off ticks em off a bit.
I took my daughter and grand daughter their yesterday. We fished for five hours. Between three people we caught one small bass, one four inch bluegill and one mid size crappy. There were tip ups scattered everywhere on the ice. That marina is small and with that many people out there every weekend it just spooks the fish. But go have fun. Just remember it's fishing, not catching.
Fished 9.5 foot depths on 7 inches of ice, far from the maddening crowd and caught one chubby 21 incher that I released. I hoped to keep a smaller one thinking the bite was just starting at 3:30pm . Had three more bites in 3 hours but none of them stayed stuck. Fish finder worked but the cam only got pushed sideways in the strong current. Rosie reds seemed to work on a horizontal gold jig; shiners from the Shell gas station not as good. Saw some fish up high on the finder (whitefish?) but could not verify. Walked out checking with a spud bar north of 172 bridge on Thursday and found 5 inches of black ice so it gained 2 inches from Friday's chilly night.
They are not catching everything that bites in that marina. It has gotten so much fishing pressure that the fish are very tight lipped. There are decent crappies but running smaller this year. The perch has slowed to a crawl. A monster gill pushes 6". The pike and bass chase everything off but rarely bite.
By the way I was on the fox today.
Two tiny perch, one 16" walleye, a 21" pike, a 24" pike and a 26" walleye. Lost four other walleye and a monster pike broke me off after a 14 minute battle. Two pound test. All on minnows. 9.5' of water.
I was targeting perch.
Tried the evening bite today. We fished 3:30 - 6:00 in about 10 FOW. Marked lots of fish but managed only 2 walleye. Wonderbread jigging spoon with minnow head and Pink jigging rap. Fair amount of water on top of the ice at the landing but had at least 5" of ice depth.