Bright skies and cold temperatures make for very few bites. I know a lot of people have been waiting for better conditions to bend a rod and I cannot say I blame them. The real dumping of snow we were supposed to get fell south and the temperatures plummeted into the minus 20s overnight, making for rough trails and bitter cold days. The few brave souls I spoke with this weekend said the snowmobile trails were a little rough, but still enjoyable.
I spotted a few deer today by North Gunflint Lake Road. I actually stopped to watch them. It has been so long that it was pretty cool to see a few still around.
We see wolves so often that I do not even give them a double take. They like to work the snowmobile trail and the development properties across the street on Loon Lake. I am surprised they are able to find sustainable diets in this area. You would think they would follow the herds of deer, but they seem to be staging in this area even though the deer have almost disappeared. The wolf tracks around our property are usually surrounded by snowshoe hare tracks.
The ice reports on Gunflint Lake as of New Year’s weekend ranged from 4 to 12 inches. They are still keeping up the “thin ice” warning signs for a little longer. I would have thought there would be a lot more ice than that, but it has only been frozen for a few weeks. The big deeper lakes take longer, especially if they have a lot of springs.
This week is supposed to be very cold with the arctic jet stream dipping so far south that our friends in Key West are even feeling it. They love it because they can finally break out the winter jackets that have been sitting in the closet for a year. Winter jackets and four-wheel drive trucks are two things you have a very hard time buying in the Florida Keys.
Just another week or so before the all-around trout season opens and I am hoping for some milder weather. January 15th is the official opener and a lot of anglers will be hitting their favorite Gunflint Trail lakes.
There are so many options up here it becomes very hard to decide where to try. I usually skip Birch and Moss since there are usually a lot of anglers there on the opener. Gunflint is big enough that it really does not matter how many people are there. Saganaga will also have a lot of traffic, but I just am not sold on hiking in with a hand auger yet. I fish those spots all summer long from my boat and I prefer to explore the lakes that are closer to my home where you can fish off of your machine and drill as many holes as you want with a gas powered auger. Ice fishing is hard enough; I like to keep it as simple as possible.
Cory Christianson, a 2000
graduate of the University of
Iowa, has worked as a fishing
guide on the Gunflint Trail for
nine years. If you have any fishing
reports or stories to share,
send an email to: christiansoncory@
hotmail.com or call 218-
388-0315.
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