The title of this report could be: “The legend of the Slush Monster.” The warmer temps and copious amounts of snow and rain have created some difficult travel conditions on the lake. We had about 2 feet of snow which has now changed to slush. This is common for this time of year, when the accumulations of snow begin to melt. That being said travel on the lake is possible with a snowmobile. ATV’s and UTV’s should stay home.
Last year when this happened, we had up to 8 inches of standing water on top of the ice. Once the water seeped through the ice, we had glare ice until the end of the season. This temporary inconvenience to ice anglers will soon change to better travel conditions.
As for the fishing, the big perch are schooling up and man are they aggressive. We saw large schools of giant perch roaming this week. Some perch were in packs of 10-20 fish, all jumbos 13-16 inches long. They have definitely started their seasonal migration into the shallows where they will be staging for the spawn. We targeted mud flats less than 15 feet of water. Surprising, the bigger fish were feeding on small snails in lieu of baby perch.
They still were attacking larger profile baits, like 1/8 oz tingler spoons, and they were not shy to hit them. One other gentleman I talked to said they had good luck on tiny tungsten jigs as well, so it seems that the size of the bait doesn’t seem to matter. What does matter is finding the area where the big girls are staging for the spawn. Move, move, move until you find them.
One thing I will say about catching the larger females, let them go so they can spawn. There are plenty of smaller females and males for the table. The big females, larger than 14 inches, are over 15 years old. It will take a long time for a fish to get that big to replace her. Earlier this year I caught a 13.25 inch female that was tagged in 2011. The biologist said to me that they only tag fish larger than 7 inches. That means that the 13.25 inch fish only grew 6 inches in 12 years. Most of the 15 inch fish in the lake are from 2008.
With the ice fishing season winding down it won’t be long until we get the boat out on the lake. Until then, perch fishing on Lake Cascade can be the best fishing of the ice season. Be Safe, and we’ll see you on the water.
Chris Weber 920.728.2818 @lake_cascade_guidedfishing cweb823@gmail.com Guide for Tamarack Resort Guide for Tackle Toms
