MUCH BAY ICE STILL UNPREDICTABLE, BUT THAT DOESN'T STOP THE FISHING

HEADIN' DOWN TO THE OL'  FISHIN' HOLE

MOST ICE FISHERMEN SEEM TO BE WALKING

VIEW OF FISHING TENTS FROM ICE ROAD RAMP

ICE PRESSURE RIDGE 

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  The sky is overcast.  Wind WSW, calm to light.  The humidity is 89% and the barometer is still trending down, now at 29.44".
   Despite recent severe cold, the Ice Road from Bayfield to Madelne Island remains closed, and I haven't seen much snowmobile activity on Chequamegon Bay, although there is some. Temperatures warmed to around freezing yesterday and will be warm again today before turning cold  early in the week.
   Currents and wind create a lot of unpredictable ice between Bayfield and Madeline Island and between all the islands.  The ice pressure ridge pictured above is a hundred yards or so off shore from the Bayfield Ice Road landing at the east end of Washington Ave.
   I haven't ice fished since I was a kid and went out on some of the lakes around Milwaukee with my dad.  The last time would have been when I was fifteen or so, as he died shortly after that.  We would take my sled, put the tip-ups and a couple of buckets holding lunch on the sled and walk out on the ice, chop a hole and sit on the buckets and fish.  The equipment cost nearly nothing and the minnows were pennies.  Today everyone has a snowmobile or an ATV, sits in a cramped, dark tent and watches a little TV monitor for the fish to approach the bait.  Properly outfitted with all the right gear the investment is around ten grand.  I'll settle for no-cost memories (although I am very happy to have a nice trout dropped off at the house anytime a kind neighbor is so inclined).
   I will continue my "no politics on Sunday"policy in 2014.