This is the first post I put two days together as it was just too busy to take the time to complete it. It was a very busy weekend for me.

Friday the 18th was our windiest day on the ice I had seen for quite awhile. Most of the afternoon it was a steady 40 with gusts up to 50-60 mph.  It was a true whiteout for a few hours in the afternoon and by dark it was settling down.  It was a good thing we didn’t have alot of fresh snow on the ice our it would have been a total shutdown. Wheelhouses that showed up during it “camped” in our parking area along our driveway and waited it out.  The roads held up fine and there was just driveway cleanup on Saturday.

During the wind the bite was very slow but yesterday as the barometer started dropping it picked up for some, but not many. There were some nice catches in areas of 20 feet or less.  But overall it was a pretty quiet weekend. With this snow coming the next couple days it could change it, but there will not be many fishermen out there.

We are going to start pulling all permanent houses that are ready to come off Sunday morning  to get ahead of the snow coming the next couple days as we are forecasted to get anywhere from between 9-16″ of snow the next few days so the scenery will be changing out there. Many permanents that have been longtime customers understand the situation and will not be coming up so they will come off.

(February 20th update at 7:30 pm.)   We got about 1/3 of the houses lined up on the roads in front and they will be coming up the hill tomorrow into the storage lot.  The snow is supposed to start overnight, with a 2 day storm total of 10″ to 18″ of snow and up to 30 mph winds. So it will be a different world out there come Wednesday. Our plans are to keep going for the last weekend, but depending on the conditions moving forward we just might keep pulling after it and end it.  I will keep everyone that is still out there and rentals that are expected to come for the last weekend updated as it goes the next couple days.  There will be a list of who’s permanents are still out there there available in the office for those that want to find out.

With the winds, temperature changes, the difficult bite we have had this winter, (especially  the last 3 weeks)…  I decided it was best to play it safe and get them off while it was the getting was good. with all the hard snow banks and banking around many of the houses that would have been a big problem,  it was time… with the big drifts added to them after this storm there would have be flooding around them and make it much more difficult to get them in, and cost everyone more money to get to them.  Looking back years ago there was a reason the Walleye season ended on February 15th… and this is one of those years. I have seen many more years out there than most and that’s why I’m doing it….

Keep a Tight LIne!

Eddy