This snow is not helping our ice situation

Well I hope we get ice now looks like cold temps for the next week. Thankfully many lakes opened up or are open yet. here’s hoping

Fished friday and ice was ok. Slushy areas but mostly 1′ of pack snow ontop of 7″ of ice. We drilled a pile of holes. Next day this same area was all slush. We sunk our spot. Fishing was good both days. Add another 1′ on top of that and its going to be a messy season on my home town lake.

The lakes around here (near Duluth) had enough ice that the snow sat on top but pushed enough to get the dreaded slush on top. Things locally are going to be impossible until trucks and plows can get out now.

22 inches of snow in Duluth area. Conditions will be tough.

This is probably going to be a bad year for vehicles going through the ice. Hopefully nobody is killed this winter with bad ice conditions.

bigpike wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
The good part about this is we won’t have to deal with 8-10 inches of snow on top of the ice……

Well I guess I cant define my area as we.

Exactly. “We” are sitting on 2″-8″ of ice locally, with 20+ inches of heavy wet snow on it. We didn’t need that, will be January before the slush firms up.

It’s been tough, I fell in last week.

Take a snowmobile out and pack a trail to your spot. The water will fill in the snow and it’ll freeze solid after a cold couple of nights.

I’m optimistic about the metro lakes I see – most had open holes after the warm up and where the ice wasn’t completely lost it sunk flush when the snow came (and most snow melted). It won’t be gin clear, but it should form with good integrity.

Yeah, I was out checking a few smaller lakes in the metro this morning before work and was pretty encouraged what I saw. If we get a couple of cold nights like the forecast shows I think we should be sitting on 4-6″ by early – middle of next week. The Bemidji area on the other hand…………

Finally get some cold weather coming but here’s a snow dump first… This is discouraging.

Local fishing is all but ruined here in Duluth. Just have to wait for the harbor to firm up which can be a long while if we keep getting these NE blows. Just sucks, absolutely sucks.

tindall wrote:

Finally get some cold weather coming but here’s a snow dump first… This is discouraging.

it really sucks. Checked several spots yesterday and found 3″ of beautiful crystal clear ice in the metro. If we would have just had this cold before the snow we would have had 6-8″ solid inches of ice and been set for the season. Now who knows what to expect. I’m sure some spots will still be fishable but just disheartening

I feel everyones pain! Same thing happened on Lake Mendota in Wisconsin last year. The lake doesnt usually freeze over until January and last year it was a little later than usual, January 16th or so was when it locked up. Had about 4″ of solid ice on it and then 2′ of heavy wet snow. Even the polar vortex couldnt penetrate through all that snow insulating the lake. If there was a silver lining I think it helped the perch population…

Red and LOTW are going to have more than the usual fishing pressure due to many lakes south in the Duluth and metro areas are set back if not ruined all together for ice fishing. We just got another 4 to 6″ in the Duluth are again today.

Red was getting pounded this past weekend because nothing is really ready up at LOTW yet and next weekend won’t be any different. I’m not going to be a bit surprised when the DNR reduces bag limits on Red before long.