Superior Ice (Duluth)

Ya, I’m officially excited! FIL is coming up Saturday morning so have a long weekend on the ice in the plans anyway.

I’m still not PLANNING on getting to fish out there, but it looks more promising than I’d have guessed. Fingers crossed the big lake can make ice fast enough for everything to work out.

Beautiful picture this evening if you if you ignore the huge crack that just opened up.

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Well that stinks. Sure has been a roller coaster the last couple days!

At least this weather seems to have cooled the lake significantly. I’m hoping that if this weekend doesn’t work out there’s a chance that another round of cold and calm weather could still make it possible at some point this year.

I should probably build myself a real laker rod someday just in case…

It looks like it split right at 21st. About the worst possible spot.

I drove up the off and back down the on ramp at 21st at 3 and 3:45 today when picking my wife up from work today. There were fissures in the ice that ran out from shore all over that ice.
I was really hoping as I got on the ramp that things looked good. The one hope is that the wind is supposed to die down tonight and the temps are supposed to plummet to around -25 even by the lake (was -19 tho this morning when I dropped her off at 7am).
My guess is there will be walkers off 21st when I leave work at 4:30 tomorrow. Not sure if that will be good or bad tho….

Yup open water everywhere. We all just had to get excited, this stinking wind.

maybe tonite

Just saw two guys walk out and setup south of 21st. Not too close to open water but a little too close for my comfort given how we’ve seen the ice come and go these past few days.

Trying my best to suppress the fomo

From my vantage point, they can’t be more than 30-40 yards from the open water. The crack is growing pretty quick too… At first it literally just looked like a crack but it has grown to what I’d now consider simply open water.

looks like the entire north shore is starting to lock up on todays Modis. LOTS of huge cracks though.

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Unfortunately those cracks can be measured in fractions of a mile. The one near Duluth I’d guess is at least a half mile wide. It started out a few feet wide this morning.

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And open water over by the glensheen. South winds dont help the cause based on Modis.

Even if things go belly up this weekend I am holding out hope.

A little word of warning to anyone thinking of heading out there. You’ve already seen how easily the ice can move even with the relatively light winds today. Sone of that ice may be 6” while other places may be 1”.

Check out Friday’s wind forecast. I’m really worried there could be some people caught out there tomorrow. People could go out there with calm conditions only to have it change. Saturday looks better but it’s still very young ice. Please don’t be a sheep and follow the crowd.

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Gill is spot on. This weekend could get dangerous with the warm up and pick up in wind…a lot of people are going to be willing to test it. I hope they don’t.

Was still open water and huge crack just north of 21st when I went down to lakewalk 30 minutes ago

Biggill, not sure if I’m reading that right but is that showing a 10 mph max wind?

Where are you finding that chart? I’m guessing that forecast is for the actual lake?

I’m surprised you say Saturday looks better. According to the weather channel, the wind in Duluth tomorrow is 5-10 while Saturday is 10-20. I understand though that the lake could behave different than on land though.

I wanted to get out there tomorrow but not feeling very comfortable after watching the ice blow around and separate the last couple days.

Tucker

When I left work and drove down 21st at 4:30, there was open water about 150 yards off of 21st. The ice next to shore was broken and not stable.
There is not a fish in the lake worth walking out on that for…..

I got that forecast off of the WindAlert app. The number on top is the sustained wind. The number on the bottom is wind gust. The fact that forecasts are contradicting each other is scary. It’s just too early to risk it with any wind. If the forecasts agree on light wind, it might be a different story.

I’ve been out there numerous times where the ice I was standing on one day was gone the next.

Here’s what WindAlert is saying for Saturday. An onshore wind is way better than an offshore wind. Still not ideal though.

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curleytail wrote:

I wanted to get out there tomorrow but not feeling very comfortable after watching the ice blow around and separate the last couple days.

Just don’t go. People get FOMO (fear of missing out) which can be dangerous. Just because people go out there doesn’t mean they are smarter than you.

The forecast is calling for more ice making weather. I highly recommend avoiding the urge this weekend.

Ingeresting in the discrepancy of wind forecasts. Sounds like fishing around 21st is not a good idea. Is there anywhere else that might have ice that’s worth fishing?

The Inn by Canal Park looked to be pretty iced over, but seemed to also have several small fissure type cracks. But not sure if that area is worth fishing.

I might call a bait shop or two up there to get an update tomorrow morning. With that said, it would be an experience to fish out there. But I’m not willing to take a big risk of it being my last experience either…

I will try to take a pic from 21st when I leave work tomorrow to give everyone an idea whats out there. Problem is it’s deceiving.
Really wish that someone would put a webcam on top of one of the Beacon Point condos.

Sound advice. Want and Do can be two different things.

I’m not the kind of guy that has no issues taking my truck on 8 inches of ice or building 30 foot bridges to get on last ice. Unless I hear something very convincing tomorrow, I’ll be trying to find where Pat and Ty found those huge crappies a couple weeks ago around Hayward.

Tucker

If my memory serves me correctly in 14’ we had bitter cold then a dump of snow with sustained NE winds. It was later in the year because I remember shipping opened back up and the CG started breaking ice while we were out there.

There was 10-12 inches of ice and the whole lake had capped at that point. We are off to a good start and it’s fun to talk about, but still too early.

Drizzy Musky wrote:

It was later in the year because I remember shipping opened back up and the CG started breaking ice while we were out there.

Literally. That’s me…

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That’s awesome! Glad you could verify.

The pictures I had went down the hole with my phone. Man that was such a good year on the ice. I can remember fishing McQuade well into April

I see a bunch of guys are in the harbor at Two Harbors this AM. I wonder if they’re biting……

I just counted 19 portables there. One guys getting ready to walk out with his. I’ll venture a great at cohos or whitefish/herring. Some Trout may be back in there with ice now, but pretty bright today. I see a couple pressure ridges have popped up from the end of the wall extending to wherever they go back into the docks.

Unless some super heavy duty wind from the se comes along I think the harbor ice will stay now until spring. Ma and I were up there a couple years ago when the first ore boat, the Gott, came into the harbor and broke the ice. When it turned with the thrusters to slide in next to the dock it pushed up chunks of ice as big as single car garage and three to four feet thick. The noise was something else. Really something to see.

Tom, can you confirm that they actually catch whitefish there? I know a lot of people use the term whitefish when they catch ciscoes.

I know you know the difference too. I just wanted to confirm. I’ve never caught a whitefish. I’d really like to get some.

I’ve caught whitefish/herring out from Brighton beach back a few years ago when the ice got good. Cohos at sunrise then whitish after cohos like the euro larva on a lil pimple and the whitish no bait in the pimp.