I wanted some fish to smoke for the holidays, but didn’t have enough time to travel uplake to hit the ice. A buddy and I launched at Mustang Ridge around 130PM, with the air temp a balmy 25F. We tried jigging some deep lakers for a while, without any success. We finally resorted to casting jigs for rainbows in Jarvies Bay and found the bite to be really good for quality bows and some bonus lake trout pups. We were almost exclusively using Gulp minnows on a 3/8 oz jighead, jigged slowly, with most of the hits on the fall. All of the fish were caught in 10-30 ft of water, and the lakers were some of the shallowest but hardest hitters.
Without any significant snow in the last couple of weeks, the launches are dry. Anglers that are hesitant to hit the ice, can still enjoy some great open water fishing. Unfortunately, no matter what venue you choose, you’ll still have to deal with the cold. Catching fish takes your mind off that though!
Water temp 44F.
Hope it helps.