Well, I wish I had a report of fishable ice for you, but Mother Nature just won’t make up her mind. Our small to mid-sized lakes have frozen over and blown open a couple times now. The smaller bodies of water that have kept their ice received around 4” of wet snow this week, so that ice is now in very poor condition as well.
The past couple days have had very cool low temps, so we’ve been seeing many of the lakes freezing over again. With the good news also comes the bad, we are supposed to see high winds and temps in the coming days, so the ice we’ve made may get busted up once again.
Despite the delay in our ice fishing season, there are still opportunities to wet a line in the Alexandria area. Most of the larger lakes are still accessible by boat and the reports are pretty decent for crappie, walleye and muskie. So, if you have the desire the fish have been willing and ready.
The other option is to use extreme caution and find some of the smaller lakes that stayed frozen through this up and down weather pattern. I’ve heard reports of 3-4” of ice in areas with an inch or two of slush on top. The people that have been venturing out are reporting some very good catches of both walleye and crappie.
Hopefully winter sets in for good soon so we can get on with our ice fishing season. As for now, let’s just enjoy the nice weather and spend some time outdoors. I know personally I can’t wait to get out in the boat a couple more times. Remember to check back for ice updates. I’ll post again soon as we work our way slowly into the ice fishing season. Stay safe and good luck fishing!
