winter camped on bittern the last few days, fished bittern friday and saturday. Lots of snow had fallen while we were there, but it was still not too bad to break a new trail anywhere by the time we left sunday morning. When all that fluffy snow hardens, travelling off trails will become more difficult. Fishing was pretty good, mix of small walleye and small pike, spread throughout the day kept us entertained, but not as good of luck as we have had on the ice at bittern 2 years ago and prior. We tried in roughly 6 different spots to see if we could stir up more action. We had our best success shallower than we usually do, caught most in ~4-5fow under the ice, did catch at 7 and 10 fow too though.
Fished montreal sunday, snow conditions similar to bittern but perhaps less? we stuck to the trails mostly there, but didnt have any trouble pulling off to find our own spot away from the groups. Fishing was good in my opinion, i have only fished montreal once before and we didnt get lucky that day. the walleye and pike were bigger on average at montreal and reasonably active. we only fished it for 4 hrs but caught 3 nice walleye and a much larger pike than at bittern. Had some other bites and fish were often under us too.
From what i seen the ice on bittern was as thin as about 14-16 inches (a bit thicker in some spots) and the only spot we tried on montreal was about 16-18 inches (approximate measurements to ice, not snow).