Ice Fishing Reports

Beautiful looking day on the Lake. Snow covered ice and blue skies, no wind and 17 degrees.

One guy out off Catawba and the small shanty towns north and west of South Bass Island.

Ice fishing is on, so post your reports or info!

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Yes it would be nice to hear from people how is ice condition and how fishing going.

If you saw a grey shanty yesterday to the south of Rock ledge that was me about .25-.5 mile off 14 ft of water about 5-7 inches of clear good ice

So, how did it go, any fish on ice?

Just a couple of little shorts, no keepers

01/27/22 - Area webcams today don't show anyone out west of Catawba. Don't know if that's because they are north of the camera view or nobody went out because of the wind. Looks like twice as many people out off South Bass, little town of shanties and tent shelters between north of Green and south of Rattlesnake Islands. Satellite pic still shows some 'weak' strips and small spots of open water all around that area south west of South Bass and north west of Catawba. Almost all ice, but it still doesn't look as stable as you want it to be to prevent ice movement. Looks nice and "locked in" west and north of South Bass.

I seen no one out of catawba today but one airboat. That strong SW wind got some respect from all of us as it should.

There is a good size group off Catawba today, but looks like only out a half mile or less. West and north of South Bass continues to have a lot of fishing. Second hand report of some people out off Camp Perry. Weekend deep freeze again should improve conditions. Weekend looks good for access and ice. Now for some fishing catch reports...

Friend of mine and his son were out on East Harbor today. He fishes East Harbor most weekends in the summer as he loves panfish. He could not catch a fish today, and he said he talked to other fisherman around him today, and he did not see a fish caught!

Ice cutters are out. You can see the track in the satellite photo. Confirmed on Marine Traffic website.

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As you would expect, nobody out off Catawba this morning. All the ice shanties have been pulled off the ice north and west of South Bass Island (there was one person out there this morning). We'll see what this coming storm, mostly the high N NNE winds, do to the ice. Then Friday Saturday bitter cold again and continued at night through Tuesady. No significant warmup forecast through next weekend, so hopefully the ice fishing will return.

Going by the Internet web cams, most shanties back out off South Bass. A few folks out off Catawaba. So ice fishing is back on.

Looks like a large crack off catawba.
Snowmobiles riding back and forth.
Coastguard chopper is flying alone the crack.

Looks like the ice fishing season probably has at least one more weekend (Feb 25-27) left over at South Bass. Winds and warm weather / rain have broken up the Western Basin ice everywhere except west and north of South Bass and a few other island and nearshore areas. South Bass fishing has been reduced due to the weather, but they are still out there on 12 inches of ice. Last second hand report I got was the fishing wasn't that good that day, but that was middle of last week. Today they should be back at it and more people fishing. Every week now more walleye are coming into the area in preparation for the upcoming spawning season, so this week and next should see better success and more bigger fish caught.

The ice on the Lake will be there for some time, so the safe open water season (no flow ice) is still probably a month away. But we all know as soon as the launch ramps open up and boats can get out, there will be people out there starting to fish.

Thanks for the ice fishing update.That wind last week really broke up and moved the ice in the western basin.They will be lucky to get another weekend to fish off the islands.You are correct on around another month till open water fishing.The charters usually start putting their boats in when the marinas clear around the third thru fourth week of March.
And yes,they have a Huron river thread going on OGF thats being updated as the ice clears.There will be guys fishing as soon as it opens too.The problems they will encounter are potential ice sheets moving and blocking their way back to ramps.There is also a tremendous amount of floating debris coming out of rivers and on the lake as the ice melts.