Rice Lake Fishing Report
Rice Lake
Fishing Report 04-02-12
By Frank Zumpf, Local Outdoorsman
The fishing this week was spotty at best. The panfish are working their way into shallow bays on the west side of the lakes. We have been having some luck using small plastics and various small minnow imitations. The weeds aren’t up yet so it isn’t too hard to run a bobber with a jig and plastic. Just watch your electronics and set the depth. As the wind keeps the wave action up it will work your jig for you.
When the wind is too strong we put out an anchor to slow us down. I got a surprise this week when I was pulling up the anchor. The anchor had a 6-foot spinning rod hooked on it. I cleaned it up and it wasn’t in too bad of shape. While fishing for crappies we caught a 36-inch northern. This surprised me as I thought they would be in the swampy slough areas spawning.
The volunteers for Walleyes for Tomorrow have got the hatcheries set up and the nets set, but the fish that they are catching are not quite ready to spawn yet. Just a couple of days and they will fill the hatchery. The surface water temp has been at 48-49 degrees this week.
Don’t forget that we need new fishing licenses because they expired on March 31st. If your boat expires in 2012 it was only good until March 31st as well. There can be pretty steep fines for fishing without a license or being out in a boat with expired registration, so be sure to take care of that right now.
For Information on vacationing in the Rice Lake area, contact Rice Lake Tourism at www.ricelaketourism.com.