first ice report.... fishing good, ice not so much

[Chrisper4694]

long story short, the ice is pretty bad... we spent 30-40 minutes in full safety gear just checking a small area to fish.  we found some ok 4" half grey half black ice that was pretty hard which is what we fished (but i don't anticipate it surviving the current forecast... the worst part was the black ice didn't thicken up nearly as much as it should have and the most dangerous part was that some of the 4-5 inch non-black ice was so soft, you could punch a spud through it in one hit!!  (no we didn't fish those areas...even though you could walk over them and wouldn't even know you were on crap unless you speared it)

so bottom line, i wouldn't recommend going out unless you were confident you could rescue yourself and had full safety gear, but that being said, there is some ice to be fished for now...

fishing was ok with plenty of slime dart action and some jumbo perch in the mix.  no bass, crappie, or gills though.  will try this afternoon into the dark for some crappie, fingers crossed.