01-09-2023, 09:31 PM
I fish DC year round but lately the ice season has been iffy to non existent. When it does ice over sometimes we only get a week or 2 of safe ice. I know people have differing versions of what "safe ice" is but I lean to the safer side so it's been a few years since I ice fished DC. I have seen plenty of polar plunges at DC getting on or off the ice. I know it happens elsewhere but I hate to bring a plank ice fishing so I usually stay away from the soft edges when possible. When I have ice fished DC I have done very well for rainbows and perch but never targeted walleye or bass. I know there are some who target walleye (with success) but I have not tried. Rainbows can be found lake wide and are usually suspended from 10 to 25 feet under the ice. My best success on rainbows is a jig tipped with a piece of night crawler. Perch are bottom dwellers and I usually find them in the northern half of the lake in 12-50 feet of water. Recently the numbers seem to be way down and it has been difficult for me to locate schools of perch the last 2 years. I attribute this to to the large smallmouth population who seem to be eating up all the perch minnows. I drove up to the lake yesterday to check it out and found it mostly capped now with a number of ice fishermen from Rainbow bay north. I did not check ice thickness. I was hoping for a little open water still since I had a great boat trip there on December 29 but that small area near the main ramp is now capped and the ramp is not even plowed so be prepared for a nice hike through 18" of snow to get down to the lake. (Suggestion to the State Park people: it would be nice if you plowed the ramp so people could access the lake easier rather than hike through that much snow to get to the ice) The island ramp was plowed however. As has been mentioned, DC has very steep banks and my son took a polar plunge up to his neck just 6 feet from shore a few years ago so stay safe!