By Mike Peluso

I’m on the 18th tee box for the ice fishing season, I just need to keep it in the fairway and get up and down to close it out.

It is hard to believe it’s coming to an end already, but it goes fast and I’m already getting excited for the open water season to begin. It looks like we will be getting that going extremely early this year.

In fact, I’m guessing I’ll be offering some trips on the Missouri River near Bismarck here towards the end of March already. And that’s not really a guess because I have buddies already out chasing open water walleyes back home.

I still have about eight days left on the frozen stuff up here on Devils Lake. It’s been a winter of quality over quantity, that’s for sure. We have had to work our butts off to stay on top of things.

The ice actually is better now up here than it was all winter. The fishing has been okay; not great, but if you work for them and stay mobile you’ll do ok. I would anticipate it getting really good about the time I wrap up and head back to Bismarck.

Small buckshot spoons tipped with minnow heads has been hard to beat all winter long. Any type of structure like points, roads, humps, and so on seem to be concentrating the majority of fish. I would think the fish will begin moving shallow here in the next couple of weeks.

Since I’ll be returning to open water in just over a week, I’ll take some early open water guide trips if anyone is interested. Get ahold of me! I have a few openings in April also.

Mike Peluso is a Dakota Edge Outdoors contributing writer and a licensed ND fishing guide specializing in walleyes on the state’s premier waters.

Featured Photo: A Jumbo to Go.  The author is wrapping up his ice angling season on Devils Lake, scratching out quality perch and walleyes on the water. DEO Photo by Mike Peluso.