12-29-2004, 09:37 PM
Bear lake fish guy, use caution.
I have been fishing it, and the ice conditions are less than desirable, and gettting worse daily.
I live less than 10 minuets from there, and so its my hole when i want to hit the ice for a couple hours.
The ice has been changing in thickness greatly.
There is now a slim 3 inches of ice on most of the lake. The ice has vertical cracks running through it everywhere. The vertical cracks go from the top, to about 3/4 of an inch from the bottom.
The rain is not going to help. It has been warm, and that is just softening up the ice even more.
I guarantee someone is going through the ice up there saturday. Probably a couple people.
Why?
Beacuse they arent aware of bubbler locations.
This bubbler is capped off, and the visual part of it is only a 2 inch diameter. But there is only a 1/4 inch thick ice sheet for three feet surrounding it.
if you step within three feet of this small hole, you are going swimming.
[inline 100_0432.JPG]
If you lay out flat, stay back a ways, and tap the surrounding area with your ice scoop, you can break away the thin ice and expose the bubbler like this.
[inline 100_0430.JPG]
You can now start to see some of the bubbles, and get an idea of the thin ice.
Tap away at it a bit more.....
[inline 100_0431.JPG]
You now have a very large hole, and you can see, it wouldnt take much to go through the ice here.
Amazing since ten feet from here you have three inches of ice. But I have seen it on mantua when you had eight inches of ice, and there were still open pockets that were just visible as depressions in the snow until you broke the very thin ice on them, and exposed the bubblers.
Never fish mantua without a rope to throw to someone. Its low elevation, and the bubblers dont make for the friendliest of ice fishing coinditions.
Keep in mind that just because you fished it last week, and the ice was good, that you need to check before going into the deeper water, and always, even if the ice is plenty thick, keep your eyes peeled for bubblers.
That being said, heres a couple pics from this weeks fishing.
The fish are still being caught without bait, but once the bait restriction goes off, the fishing should be red hot.
[inline 100_0426.JPG]
[inline 100_0427.JPG]
[inline 100_0429.JPG]
Now for a look at the perch mantua can produce.
[inline Scan108.jpg]
That being said, see you up there. But be careful.
if you happen to see me, and decide to pay a visit, approach with caution. The area I will be fishing has five good bubblers in it. At least there is five that I know of.
[signature]
I have been fishing it, and the ice conditions are less than desirable, and gettting worse daily.
I live less than 10 minuets from there, and so its my hole when i want to hit the ice for a couple hours.
The ice has been changing in thickness greatly.
There is now a slim 3 inches of ice on most of the lake. The ice has vertical cracks running through it everywhere. The vertical cracks go from the top, to about 3/4 of an inch from the bottom.
The rain is not going to help. It has been warm, and that is just softening up the ice even more.
I guarantee someone is going through the ice up there saturday. Probably a couple people.
Why?
Beacuse they arent aware of bubbler locations.
This bubbler is capped off, and the visual part of it is only a 2 inch diameter. But there is only a 1/4 inch thick ice sheet for three feet surrounding it.
if you step within three feet of this small hole, you are going swimming.
[inline 100_0432.JPG]
If you lay out flat, stay back a ways, and tap the surrounding area with your ice scoop, you can break away the thin ice and expose the bubbler like this.
[inline 100_0430.JPG]
You can now start to see some of the bubbles, and get an idea of the thin ice.
Tap away at it a bit more.....
[inline 100_0431.JPG]
You now have a very large hole, and you can see, it wouldnt take much to go through the ice here.
Amazing since ten feet from here you have three inches of ice. But I have seen it on mantua when you had eight inches of ice, and there were still open pockets that were just visible as depressions in the snow until you broke the very thin ice on them, and exposed the bubblers.
Never fish mantua without a rope to throw to someone. Its low elevation, and the bubblers dont make for the friendliest of ice fishing coinditions.
Keep in mind that just because you fished it last week, and the ice was good, that you need to check before going into the deeper water, and always, even if the ice is plenty thick, keep your eyes peeled for bubblers.
That being said, heres a couple pics from this weeks fishing.
The fish are still being caught without bait, but once the bait restriction goes off, the fishing should be red hot.
[inline 100_0426.JPG]
[inline 100_0427.JPG]
[inline 100_0429.JPG]
Now for a look at the perch mantua can produce.
[inline Scan108.jpg]
That being said, see you up there. But be careful.
if you happen to see me, and decide to pay a visit, approach with caution. The area I will be fishing has five good bubblers in it. At least there is five that I know of.
[signature]