Ice conditions 2014-2015

[MTCOMMER]

Every lake I have driven by in the cities has pretty horrible looking ice and about 10-20 feet of water between the shore and the ice sheet.
No one will dare venture out there.  The season is done down here.

I like next to the Mississippi River and I am thinking about heading out as soon as the weather warms up.  There wont be any rising water since there was no snow this season and most of the rivers are already melted.

Otherwise ill be headed down to SE MN and do some catch and release trout fishing.  The streams SHOULD be in good shape with the lack of snow - I will be taking a look soon.

   TIME FOR OPEN WATER FISHING!!!  Ice out will be in less than 2 weeks down in these parts.  Windy and warm weather should chop it up nice.

[glenn57]

driving into work this morning that lake orono in elk river is really beginning to open up. the 2 lakes I go past on 94 aren't opening up much yet around the shorelines but sure are turning darker each day!

[glenn57]

reports from "up nort" are ATV and foot travel. thick ice but all honeycombed.

[Lee Borgersen]

                        Bemidji area
3/19/15


  ................
The meltdown of the lakes in the Bemidji area slowed down this week, with the return to more "normal" temperatures for this time of year.


There is still plenty of ice away from the shoreline on most lakes, but the ice along the shoreline is degrading from all the melting snow and ice.

The old snow cover is gone from the lakes, but the below freezing overnight temperatures this past week have helped stabilize the ice conditions on the lakes. Anglers should still be able to get out on most lakes this weekend if they want to extend the ice fishing season.

Anglers are on their own when deciding how they are going to deal with the ice conditions late in the season. ATVs are the best way to access the lakes right now, but there were still a few anglers driving vehicles on the lakes this week.

The angle of the sun is from the south during the spring, so the east and south shores of the lakes tend to melt slower than accesses on the north and west sides of the lakes, because they spend more of the day in direct sun.

Anglers need to realize the ice on the lakes melts on top and below the bottom of the ice. Anglers drilling holes in the ice is similar to taking a core sample. Anglers can learn much about the ice by watching the ice as they drill their holes.

The top of the ice will begin to break in chunks that look more like cubes than shaved ice. The middle of the ice will hopefully be hard and drill slower. The bottom of the ice will begin to saturate with water, so it will look like anglers are hitting water before making it all the way through the ice.

The critical part is how much of the ice is still hard and coming off as shaved ice. Anglers need to have enough hard ice to support whatever weight they are putting on the ice.

Dark objects in the ice like reeds or wild rice speed up the melting process, with each piece of weed sticking through the ice acting like a straw in a drinking glass, by helping the moisture seep through the ice.

The same is true about rafts of dead weeds that freeze into the ice late in the fall. These dark areas absorb more heat in the spring, causing the ice in those areas to melt more quickly.

As long as temperatures stay below freezing at night, the ice should be stable enough for ice fishing, providing anglers are walking or using an ATV. The days of driving vehicles on the ice are quickly coming to an end.

The perch bite has been good on most of the larger lakes, but anglers usually have to sort through a lot of smaller perch to catch fish big enough to keep.

Some of the larger perch are still holding on the edge of the drop-off, but close to the areas where they will spawn as soon as the ice is off the lakes.

Perch lay their eggs in strands on the remnants of last years' standing vegetation, so some standing weeds or reeds is the critical factor in deciding where perch will spawn.

Crappies and sunfish have also been active on many of the smaller lakes. Members of the sunfish family spawn later in the spring, so any late ice movements are related to feeding.

Water temperatures are usually the critical factor in deciding where crappies and sunfish feed after ice out, with the fish staging-up nearby on late ice.

The first place anglers from the Bemidji area are able to get their boats into the water is usually on the Rainy River, which has a spring season for walleyes.

The Birchdale access is usually the first place to open up for anglers from Bemidji, which could be happening sometime in the next week.

Fishing is usually best on the Rainy River early in the season, while the water still looks like coffee with no cream. When the spring rains begin and water levels start to rise, the water clouds-up quickly and fishing slow down significantly.