With all of the extremely cold weather that we have been having you wouldn’t think that there would be reports on bad ice with one little warm up, but there is. In fact, some of the reports came before the warm up.
One is from Lake of the Hills, which is the largest lake in West Lake Park, Davenport, IA. Anglers had been fishing on 10 and 12 inches of ice, but one fairly large area, where many fish, is only 2 inches. That was before the warm up, so it is most definitely out of bounds by this time.
Today I was going to one lake, where I saw a shelter out, and noticed they had driven to the west side of the lake to go out. I was going to head out from the north end, but the water had an open spot running out about 5 feet. Nope, heading to another lake.
The lake where I went is the one I’ve been on the past couple of days, and even by the end of the day there were some spider holes opening up as well as a lot of dark ice and water. This is shown in the photos.
Ice seems to be inconsistent everywhere this year. So, all of you heading on any lake be careful.
I have a feeling we have some different thicknesses at the Rock Island Conservation Club as well, and especially with the river fluctuations.
By the way, water temperature is not above freezing, which means we also have some bottom melting, and mixing to make more melting.
With the rain coming it will have to be watch, but more cold on the way from Friday into early next week.
Until next time, get out on the water/ice, if it is safe, and have a great day of fishing.