ndfinfan
★★★★★ Legendary Member
Based on next week's forecasted temps, I'm gonna say some of the smaller lakes will have fishable ice by Sunday 10 November...what do you guys think!
This morning...
I love ice fishing but I really hope warms up enough that it melts or doesn't form yet.
Bring on the ice!!!! Fish-able ice on November 8th would be perfect! #$%^&>
Ice will also make pheasant hunting a lot easier, with all this standing water.
How do you figure? Pheasants don't like wet feet, so they stay out of standing water and on dry land. When you get that first skiff of ice, the little bastages can run every cat tail patch and flooded cover available instead of just the dry land. Until the ice gets thick enough so you can walk on it or at least your dog without breaking though and dying, pheasants have a ton more cover to run and hide in that you can't access safely. Before ice and after safe ice forms and the snow gets about a foot deep is my two favorite times to chase roosters. Those two conditions concentrate birds, the in between time just spreads them out over all creation. 'Course that doesn't matter much if you have bunches of birds where you hunt....which I don't unfortunately.
I'm talking safe walking ice.
Gotcha! That is a tough call to make on a slough though. At least for me I seem to bust though and get wet feet more times than I care to remember. Only had to get the dog one time, but that was enough. Scared the crap outta me when I heard him go splash, flounder around in the cat tails where I couldn't see him, then stop thrashing and start to whine. Dropped the gun, vest, and everything else I had and crashed in after him. Got to him in waist deep water after fighting though floating cat tails, grabbed him by the collar, put him on my shoulders, and we fought our way back outta there. Needless to say, we were done for the day. I'm EXTREMELY choosy about where I take my dog after that little episode. I seem to have an attachment to him for some reason. Be Safe out there fellas.