latest ice and snow conditions in the Ely area!

[greatoutdoors]

Ely just received a blast of 12-14 inches of snow early Friday morning, and the 14 day extended forecast has very few days going into the +40 degree temps for daytime highs, and most of the night time temps dip below the freezing mark.
With this said, most if not all lakes in the area, will quite possibly be frozen for the opener (May 11th), and possibly the second weekend (May 18th), and the 3rd weekend is ??????????
Now, if we get a 7-10 day period of rain, wind, and temps in the 60's-70's (24/7) we could still pull off an icer free opener, but this isn't very probable.
I'll keep giving an update every weekend, then daily the week before the opener.  Finding large quantities of bait is going to be tough with these conditions.

[greatoutdoors]

Drove the tracked, 800 Polaris Ranger out on Burntside Lake today.  Slush/snow from 8-16 inches deep, ice thickness, 32 inches.
The 1st 8 inches or so are very soft, then the ice gets harder the deeper the hole gets. The Nils Master Auger with Ice Gator electric power head completely bottomed out before it broke through.
Ice locked tight to the shore line.
Going to take a while before it's open.

[greatoutdoors]

30 degrees in Ely this morning, peaked out at 36, cloudy and windy all day.  Tomorrow looks to be cooler, and not much help coming with the predicted lows for the next 14 days.
Ice out could be as late as the 20th to the 25th for open water on the large lakes if the weather doesn't change dramatically!