Ashmere

[bogtrotter]

This morning, I met two friends (Mike P and Sue J) at Lake Ashmere around 11 AM and fished it till around 3 PM.

It was my first "social" event (i.e., ice fishing with someone else) of the season - - although we only brought cold snack foods.

It started out sunny but clouded over in the afternoon, with cold temps (upper teens to low 20's) and breezy (5 to 10 mph) conditions all day long.

There was 14 inches of very slick ice (covered in some spots with snow) on top of the Lake, which held far more ice fishermen than I can ever recall seeing there before.

Fishing was relatively slow - - but we all caught a few perch and pickerel apiece, albeit not with any real size. 

The experience of the others out there seemed to be about the same as ours, although I did see one group land a half way decent bass.

[Sam Gee]

14 inches wow! There was only about 4 to 5 inches a week ago.

[five fathoms]

14 inches wow! There was only about 4 to 5 inches a week ago.

  If next month is the same as this month, then we're on track to have 20 inches or more of ice by March in the lowlands, to say nothing of the hill country, which could require auger extensions at that point. I say this because many waters there will have gone from 0 ice to a likely 10 inches by the end of this month.
 Many of us were griping about the fickleness of December, but January came through in a big way. I know I haven't seen 20+ inches of ice in a few seasons.
 This is just me guessing; I don't have any credentials as an ice-predictor.