A Season in the Life of an Ice Fisherman

The winter of 2007-08.

Skip shares the tradition of ice fishing withi his daughter, who brought in this 20-inch walleye.

Overall, 2007-08 was a fair to poor ice fishing season on Butternut Lake (following the 2006-07 season which was my best in 10 years). Had generally slow action throughout the winter, with some especially slow times in early and mid-February (several days in a row with no fish and not even a flag). There really didn't seem to be any hotspots and the front of the lake house seemed to be as good as any spot on the lake. I did catch a few of the bigger walleye of the winter from my favorite 'big fish holes' on the rock bar and found a new action spot to the north of the point at the lake house. The entire winter was generally cold and snowy, and didn't have a whole lot of days where the temperature got above 32 degrees in January and February, though there were a couple of mild days in early January where I caught a 33-inch northern pike and a 23-inch walleye.

My feeling is that the cold and snowy winters limit the fishing pressure with fewer people wanting to battle the cold, deep snow, and often slush. I think that forage conditions (and population density of the game fish) are more important in having an effect on winter game fish success. Last winter, it seemed that there was a good supply of small forage items available (young of year perch, panfish, and assorted minnows) and that was why fishing was a bit slower. The fish that I did catch were very fat and healthy - an indication that food was readily available.

Now, the gory numbers and totals from the season. Fished a total of 78 days out of a possible 97 (Nov. 27 to March 2). All of the trips were with tip-ups and mainly for walleye (except for one pike trip to Second Slough). Butternut Lake was the destination for 73 trips, with two trips to Spillerberg Lake and one each to Ghost, Mason and Second Slough (for northern pike). I put in 145.2 hours of actual fishing time, with most being short trips during 'prime time' (the hour or so before dark). I had a total of just 153 flags which produced 61 fish, including 51 walleye, five northern pike, four perch and one rock bass. Forty of the walleye were caught on Butternut Lake, with four from Spillerberg, two from Ghost and five from Mason Lake. For Butternut Lake, most of the walleye were in the 10- to 13-inch range, nine were greater than 15 inches (23 percent), and my biggest was a 23.4 inch walleye caught on January 8. I released 22 of the 40 walleye caught on Butternut (55 percent), and didn't keep any greater than 15 inches in length. Also caught a 33.5-inch northern during the mild spell in early January.