Lake Carlton, Morrison-Rockwood State Park

Fished from 2 to 5 around the handicapped pier. Caught about 10 small crappie.  Tight lines.

That was me. The western half of the lake locked up after the big snow and that ice is clear. It only maxed out at 6" and in 4 trips i never marked a fish so no need to press my luck over there. The eastern half has as much as 10" and as little as 4" where the runoff has been draining back in. The super clear water has made fishing difficult, but I've caught everything this week except crappies. 

1 week later and the ice is not looking good. It looks like open water to the west but it could just be standing water on top of the ice. There was 1 guy on the ice after work today by the dam.

Checked a few spots on the lake. I got 9 inches by the bait shop, 9 inches at the boat ramp, 9 inches at the dock on the NE point and 8.5 inches at the northern dock on the dam. There was 1 pop up hub straight out from the handicap pier. I was surprised there wasn't a lot of snow sitting on top.

How is the lake looking? Is it starting to freeze yet?

I fished on Sunday morning from 8am to 11:30am. I fished the north shore all the way to the west end looking for large mouth bass. Only had one strike on a crankbait. As I started slow trolling back I kept seeing schools of fish on my sonar. I dropped a tungsten ice fishing jig tipped with 1" gulp Alive minnow. Started catching crappie. They weren't keepers but almost everytime I saw a school if fish I caught one or two, depending on how long I could stay over the school with my boat. The crappie schools are just roaming around 10-15 ft of water but not really on the bottom and not holding to any structure. Hopefully this will be a good ice fishing season. 

I've been to the lake the last two weekends and the water clarity is really clear right now. I caught a handful of Largemouth bass on crankbaits but nothing of great size. Did a little bobber fishing for panfish on Sunday and caught a lot of small, small Crappie in the lilly pads. On Sunday morning there was literally only me and another boat on the water. But it got pretty windy and hard to stay on my spot.