20170301-Earliest ice out I’ve ever experienced

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Comment by Slip Sinker on March 2, 2017 at 10:51pm

Hey Bruce!... sorry about your short hard water season this year. I hope your open water season is bountiful

Comment by Bruce Tomaselli on March 2, 2017 at 4:15pm

Hi Slip,

We had it much worse here in South/Central, PA.  This is the worst I can remember. I only got out on the ice one time as it was unsafe all season. The least amount of trips I made up until this year was two. I guess I'm lucky I got on the ice once. Like you, I've never experienced such a warm winter. It sucks!

Comment by Slip Sinker on March 2, 2017 at 11:44am

I was kind of disappointed on seeing the ice season abruptly end… it felt like I was on a roll and I had them fish figured out this season under the ice… but what the hey… this warm spell has opened up some opportunity down here in mid-Michigan. There is an annual walleye run from Saginaw bay to Sanford dam… the walleye/n.pike season closes the 15th of March… I might be able to make a couple visits to the dam with the boat and try to tag a few of these tasty fish. I tried the run last year and got skunked… we will try Long-Casting/Tiny Jigs this season for them and see if we can change the luck.

We got an inch of snow last night and cold temps the next couple days but then a start of a significant warm-up for most of the week… should be on the open water tagging the panfish with the Long-Casting/Tiny Jigs just like last year, optimistically thinking.

Yes, winter 2014-15 was brutal here also… over 30” of ice took nearly till half of April to melt.

Comment by Kelly Peterson on March 2, 2017 at 10:58am

Wow, we've still got lots of snow on the ground plus much ice, still lots of people ice fishing. Last year was very early ice out for us, the 20th of March. usually mid April and sometimes like three years ago ice out came the second weekend(May 15th) of fishing season.

To put this in perspective I'm in Northern Wisconsin, probably almost a 100 miles North of you.