ICE REPORT TIME | KaBeeLo

Coney Island, Kenora | courtesy of “Lake of the Woods Ice Patrol”

Can you believe the time has arrived for ice updates?

Reports from colleagues North of the Border confirmed while Kenora has sections of open water, many of it is still up to 3 feet thick and takes ~6 weeks to fully melt.

The Weather Networks long-term forecast is for temperatures to remain slightly above normal – meaning faster than normal thawing. That would put KaBeeLo on a track to possibly be up and at’em in time for the opener!

A local “icecaptain” from “Lake of the Woods Ice Patrol” provides regular updates and has compiled a great graph displaying historical ice-out periods since 2003.  From the image below you can see that 2014 was an anomaly to say the least….

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more updates.

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WHAT IS THE ICE DOING?

As the snow melts and the sunshine persists, this time of year called “spring” marks the influx of some very common questions for Lodge owners/operators:

“when will the ice go out?”

“what is the ice doing up north”

“will I be able to fish in Canada for Walleye opener?”

Questions to which if we had the answers…we’d likely be sitting in the lap of luxury in the Cayman Islands – and no….that is not the average lifestyle of a fishing lodge owner/manager!

The MN DNR has some great statistics on “ice out”.  As you may have guessed – to date there have been ZERO reports of “ice out” in the state of MN.  Feedback from our Northern colleagues is the ice is honeycombed and poor quality resulting from a healthy insulating layer of snow.  Their outlook is that this winter is trending similar to that of 2013, meaning we could be looking at mid-late May for “ice out” in NW Ontario.  While some may think this seems late, take solace in the fact that the latest ice out on record was close to May 29th in 1950 for NW Ontario….

So until then, we will continue to watch the slow thaw and hope to be heading North sooner than later.