SE Central Iowa Ice Conditions to Report

[Bluegill Mike]

  First safe ice is here ice junkies!  I came back from a failed pheasant outing yesterday in Marshalltown traveling home to Ottumwa.  I threw an auger in so as to sample ice thickness on my routes. 

Here it goes:
Diamond Lake : 6 thick inches with little snow on the ice
Hawthorne: no idea but saw fisherman out with little snow on the ice
White Oak: 4.5" inches, clear and ice talking to me(getting thicker)

Anyone out there know how the big bodies are doing,Sugema or Belva Deer?  I'm gonna hit it hard Dec27th through Jan1.  My connections are on the Mississippi today, hope to have info on that bite this evening.  Good luck to all, mother nature has blessed us generous cold so far, hope to drive on it in a month??

[ice_man28]

Hey mike I live in Agency. Maybe we need to head out for some fishin. I know they are riding bikes and atvs on some of the lagoons already.

[Bluegill Mike]

  Checked out some far south water hoping for good ice.  Low and behold the ice was good and so was fishing..  Went to Lake Sugema, had the hole damn place to myself.  No sign of any fisherman going out yet this season there. 

I had to do alot of looking or as they say in the woods, scouting.  I was looking for 15-20 FOW near creek channels.  After a dozen holes over a large area, the Marcum picked up what I was looking for.  By dark I had a dozen gills in the pail before the crappie swarmed my hole at sundown.  I kept 26 crappie, disappointing on the size, but small fillets are what I like out of my deep fryer, nice 'n' crispy. 

Good luck to all fishing and Happy Holidays.

Bluegill Mike

[xrayman]

BluegillMike; you didn't get any birds up by marshalltown, they're everywhere, come up sometime i'll take ya out then we can hit the ice around here

[Bluegill Mike]

Tougher bite last evening, kept 11 crappie and 1 bluegill.  Fish were more scattered and not as hungry.  A WARNING to others, the ice here deteoriated a bunch yesterday.  Our ice has no snow on it and took a beating, turning the top 4" to chunk ice with the base only 6" to start with. 

At this moment, I woulnd't recommend travel on Sugema until temps go back down! 

xrayman, I might look you up sometime on that ice/pheasant deal, hope you guys first melt some snow, I busted my keyester trompin in the snow last weekend, birds could here us in the crunchy snow too!

Bluegill Mike

[hole-driller]

  hey guys. rathbun is on fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my buddy was there for the last 5 days and had a bucket load of big crappies.
he's going tomorrow but will be taking a little boat that he can slide along and set in.
vern   

from ottumwa

[CrappieBuster]

Taking a boat ice fishing?  Thazza a new concept to me

[eye53]

 :)Hole-Driller,was your buddy in the bays on the main lake or up in the bridgeview
area?Do you know the ice conditions?Thanks eye.

[IOWA BASSER]

I am headed out tomarrow for two days worth of fishing - plan on going to Brushy, but this sounds good to, any chance I can get you to devulge what part of the lake you are fishing

Also how is the ice holding up???

[Bluegill Mike]

Holedriller,

YOur post has definitely rasied a few eyebrows, myself included.  You wouldn't by chance be describing the catches of a Mr. Woten or Fogel?  Those are the only two I know that pound the crappie over there and would be crazy enough to push a boat out to catch fish.  Anyway, I figured the ice was done, would apprecate an ice update.

Bluegill Mike, Ottumwa

[BellyupFeetdanglin]

The Osky guys are crazy enough to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And are able to fill buckets!