Ice fishing is here, with that being said I will always err on the side of caution.
NO ICE IS SAFE ICE!
There is ice on the lake and I cannot stress enough that no ice is safe ice! The lake should be considered foot traffic only at this point. With the warm temperatures on the lake this weekend the ice was very soft, realistically about the most ice I came across was 4-5″ and that was not good clear ice. Take a spud with you and make sure to use it when moving around, a couple inches of good ice can quickly turn to an inch of bad ice. The upside with the warm temperatures is there is very minimal snow cover on the lake and the cold blast we are going to receive midweek should allow us to make some good solid ice in the future.
I did not spend much time fishing this weekend but did manage some “sorter” sized perch and a few small walleyes on a couple quick ice checks. The fish i did come across seemed willing to bite. A small spoon with a minnow head was my bait of choice. Looking forward to the weekend already as the forecast looks good for making a few more inches of ice and allowing for some better ice conditions to explore some more.
Fish Lake Ashtabula 