Keweenaw Bay 2019

[mjbuck]

We fished off the L'Anse side of the bay, from downtown L'Anse on Wednesday.  Conditions were horrible.  Kept breaking through the top layer of snow into 5-8 inches of slush and water.  Got the shanty set up and with no floor, we kept breaking through inside.  After a short while, the entire inside was a mixture of water and slush.  Impossible to keep dry feet, even with the best boots.  In the little while we fished, never marked a thing anyway.  Was even worse walking off as we broke through even worse.  Miserable day, Ugh!

[Uncle Sam]

Are there any changes in conditions of the snow, slush? Is atv travel possible or just sno mo's?

[mjbuck]

I've been out quite a bit in the last two weeks on the head of the Bay, 5/10ths of a mile out from the willow trees (40 feet of water).  The snow over the slush is a little better, but if you break through, you better have good boots.  I weigh 185 and I was breaking through fairly regularly around my shanty..  In a few places I was up to my knees in snow and slush.  Fortunately, I have an argo and I've made a trail out to my shanty. Even though I broke through to the slush with it a few times, I was able to make it through.  With the cold weather, the slush then froze and I noticed several people in that area were able to make it on my tracks fairly easily.  Someone had a road plowed to their smelt shanties a while back, but that was drifted over with heavy wind-packed snow.  I do not know if they plowed it open again in the last couple of days.   I have fished this area many times recently and off the L'Anse shore once.  Both had snow on top of slush.  I was told by others that this is the same all over the lake, but I can only ice witness my location.  Now, if someone would only tell the fish to bite.  On Wednesday, I saw about 30 fish on my camera (mostly splake) and only hooked two.  No matter what I put down, they just did not bite.

[Uncle Sam]

Thanks for the update mjbuck.  The only mode of travel I have is the ATV. Getting to old for the old method of travel with snowshoes.

[Flag UP]

We went out on Saturday with a snowmobile to Big Reef. DEEP snow and slush. I was sinking to over my knees when I tried to walk. Not every step but about half of them. The snowmobile made it out there and back with my wife and I plus pulling a sled but it did want to bog down in slush every once in a while.

[Depthfinder]

Thank you for the update.  That should be changing hopefully soon.

[Flag UP]

We fished out from Whirl-I-Gig today. The deep snow is gone! You need cleats of some sort the ice is so slick in most places. If you step where there is a little snow the layer of frozen slush under it is thin and you can drop down a few inches into slush but it isn't bad at all. We had no problems with the snowmobile but did see someone try to travel out there with a 4 wheeler. He kept getting it stuck when the wheels broke through.  By tomorrow it may be fine. My wife and I caught 7 lakers in 265' of water.

[BowHunter1527]

Fished all day on Sat in front of the Falls river, heard they were getting limits of cohos. Well lol not true, some might get a few but they dont seem to be in that thick yet. We ran, cameras, strikers and Panopixs, and I can tell you there is some fish in there  but it was very slow. Did manage a sturgeon to the hole that we cut and released. Also picked up a few white fish and some splake. Ice seemed good as if now, we will see how it holds up this week.

[Uncle Sam]

What are the ice  conditions out from the whirl - I - gig?

[Flag UP]

The ice is great. 3 wheelers and 4 wheelers cruising around out there this afternoon. It is a little soft on top but there is a lot of ice still. I don't know what will happen if we get a lot of warm rain but it is ideal at this time.

[Flag UP]

The Whirl-I-Gig parking lot is a muddy mess though.

[Flag UP]

The season is over! We went out from the Whirl-I-Gig lot again today. We walked out instead of taking the sno-mo because I was worried about burying it in the lot. I'm glad we did. The ice that was 3'+ last Tuesday was about 1'-1 1-2 feet thick today with a lot of channels through it where the rain must have melted through. We talked to a group that was leaving as we were starting and they said their spud was cutting through the (good) layer of ice too quickly. I set up tip ups and put up tents for my wife and I but when I sat in my tent I got a good look at the ice we were sitting on. It was about a foot thick and you could see it was approaching the candle ice stage quickly. We probably could have stayed and been safe because it was staying below freezing all day but it wasn't worth it. We never even got to drop our lines to the bottom in the tents. We did manage to catch 2 lakers on the tip ups while we were taking down the tents though. It was a fun, but short, season.