January 15th, 2025
***Ice Report***
With cold weather and some serious cold temperatures are forecasted for early next week, ice conditions continue to improve everywhere in the Ely area. As much as 20+ inches of ice is now being reported and ice roads have popped up. As much a 4” of new snow now covers area lakes, so now snowmobiles are a common sight on area lakes.
***Fishing Report***
Walleye - Walleye fishing continues to be on the slow side but a handful of good bites were reported this last week. These good bites happened in 26-30ft of water. Deadsticking a minnow, during the morning and evening hours has been the bite window. If deep is not happening for you 12ft of water continues to be another good depth to catch walleyes during the bite windows.
Lake Trout - Lake trout fishing in the BWCA continues to be good to excellent for many anglers willing to walk in. Key depths continue to be that 30-50ft range, close to deep water. Tubes, bucktails, tipped with a sucker, have been an excellent choice. Red, blue and chartreuse colored tubes have been hot.
Stream Trout - Brook trout fishing has been good for many anglers fishing in the BWCA. Anglers have been focusing on downed timber, weeds and beaver houses for brookies. Small jigging spoons, tungsten jigs, tipped with a wax worm or dead minnow have been very effective.
Pike - Pike has slowed up, but more likely because of the cold temps make it challenging to keep a hole open. Anglers fishing from heated houses reported catching a handful of pike but the average size was on the small side. With a short warmup forecasted anglers should focus on river mouths and weedbeds in 5-12ft of water. Medium to large suckers are always a good choice for tip ups.
Panfish - With the drop in temps last week the panfish bite also dropped. Anglers reported that they could find crappies and sunfish in 25-30 feet of water, but they often struggled to get them to bite. Downsizing to 1/32oz jigs and tipped them with a wax worm or two, accounted for the majority of fish caught.
