The Thaw

I don’t have near as much experience on the ice as many of you do. So I have a question on safety. I’m sure this will very lake to lake though but just looking for thoughts. I might be able to sneak away and do some fishing saturday or sunday. The lakes around the cities I think have about 6-7 inches in most places. How many inches could we lose. Will that mess up my plans?

Thanks
Tony

From what I have heard, Minneapolis area lakes currently have anywhere from 1-10 inches, in some cases this variation can be on the same lake/bay. Be careful going anywhere that doesnt have evidence of someone else being there first.

That’s really a tough question to answer, so many variables. People were driving on White Bear last night. It’s always best to error on the side of caution.

I would assume that even with the warm temps walking will still be safe. When you get to your destination just fire up the auger and pop some holes and check it out. I like to check things out for myself as opposed to what other people are saying and doing unless it’s someone I know and trust.

There’s 8-10″ on the lakes in the west metro. Pretty doubtful well lose any ice in the coming days.

Lake Pepin was largely water covered yesterday morning. This little cool shot today and last night will slow things down some, but if we see the forcast temps I am sure that the places with thin ice could take a hit. Be careful…use the spud bar.

There’s more ice on pepin than there is around faribault. Caught 36 sauger in 3 hrs with a buddy Sunday afternoon. Biggest sauger was a football! 19″, 3#

As long as you’re not talking about a river or somewhere with moving water there will be very little or no ice loss with just a few days of warmer temperatures. My biggest concern is that any cracks caused by the ice expanding with warmer temps won’t heal (re-freeze) adequately unless overnight temps get back down into the low teens or even single digits. The spud bar is your friend… For early ice such as now where ice thickness can vary I always take the time to check out an area on foot before I will go out with a ATV and I’ll never drive a vehicle on the ice (even if someone else already has one parked on the ice) until I verify for myself that there is at least a foot of solid ice.

On the days that the temps have gotten above freezing and stayed above freezing or even in the high 20’s overnight the ice can tend to be a little softer which means you’ve got to be even more wary of driving on it.

I was going to ask the same question…. I fish a lake that has 8″ of ice and an inch maybe two inches of snow cover. With temps approaching 50F on Saturday does the ice weaken? Are the “cracks” in certain areas a bigger risk to walk over when its 45F+? I plan on just walking out as the lake is pretty small, and I will avoid the northern end that only has 4″ near a low flow creek entrance. So does 8″ of ice still act like 8″ of ice when the ambient temps rise like this? THANKS