My 2 daughters had Friday off from school, so we headed over to try a old favorite lake of mine. This lake seasons were changed to almost exclusively to a winter season 4 years ago, so there's very little time this lake can be fished without ice or difficult access. Neglect and no fishing pressure has wrecked this once popular and productive lake. Some bucket biologists dumped in catfish, so that's a big problem now. As I approached the lake on a sunny 60 day the piles of snow off the side of the road were a warning. Driving into the camping area I was very surprised to see the entire lake FROZEN! This wasn't good. I drove up to the overlook and the entire lake was frozen with just a bit of open water along one side. I was about to leave when I noticed that the very north end looked different. It was in the shadows, so I drove up further to have a look see. Luckily the 150 ft. end part was open water. This is where I wanted to camp anyway, so we gave it a shot. After setting up camp I fished for several hours with 3-4 tiny catfish for the effort. The next morn. it was calm and sunny. The wind had blown the ice down lake another 200 ft. so we were able to walk down and fish deeper water. Fishing wasn't red hot, but we caught 8 nice bows about 14-16 in. in 4 hours between myself and 2 daughters. We used marshmallow and worm. The fish were very lethargic with the cold water, but in nice shape. Sunday we picked up 4-5 more. There were 6-8 other people fishing the opposite shore during the weekend and I didn't see another fish caught. As we were leaving about noon the wind had shifted and blew a large section of ice back into the end of the lake we had just left. Timing is everything!

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