Budd Lake & Pratt Lake Report



Pratt Lake Blue Gills



Friday was the last day of ice fishing for Mark and I, so we decided to put in a full day looking for anything that would bite.  We started out on Budd Lake at 6:00am on the South shore in 14 FOW.   We saw lots of small blue gills, bass, and several nice walleye on the camera.  The action started at 8:11am when we had our first flag (lost it) and then at 8:40am a big walleye came in and checkout my jig before swimming off. The North wind picked up at 9:00am and I was cold, so went out and I did more camera work.  I checked out the flat areas and found two big walleyes laying on the bottom half buried in silt which was a sign that the bite was going to be slow.  I had to leave the lake at 9:30am for a quick meeting with a customer which kept me off the ice until 1pm when I met back up with Mark at Pratt Lake.  We started on the West side of the lake and checked out three areas that normally hold walleyes and after an hour of looking at empty water we packed up and moved East.  On the North East shore we found two walleyes and lots of blue gills in our first set of holes, so we decided to setup and try the area.  We had fourteen flags, four missed fish, six bass, and the rest were pike.  The blue gills fishing was hot and the fish were scattered from the bottom to 3 foot under the ice in depths of 7 to 16 foot.  Total pan fish action we hooked twenty three keeper gills for our dinner.  Mark and I spent the last three hours of the day jigging for walleyes and trolling all of the open holes in search of a big walleye without any luck.  The bite finally slowed down and so did we and at seven thirty another great ice fishing season for came to a close.

Good Luck....



Moxie Minnow, Bro Bug, Gulp 1" leaches, Sting'r Hooks




Pratt Lake Tip Up Action