With the predicted weather tonight and blizzard conditions for Friday, 1/15/21, and the fact the marina has not been driving trucks on the ice yet, we have decided to pull the 4 rental fish houses we had out in Waconia Bay off the ice for the short term. The ice isn’t as thick as it normally is for mid-January. If the predictions of the snow and strong winds come true we expect heavy drifts around fish houses potentially causing some flooding around them. The recipe of standing water and high winds swirling the water around fish houses has been a cause for problems twice in the past 25 years with houses falling into expanded holes in the ice. If you’ve got a house on the lake and won’t be fishing in it this weekend, we suggest removing it from the ice (not leave on shore or snow will drift around it just as bad or worse). If you’re not removing your house, at the very least, check on it Friday.
Currently, the areas that had slush ice on top (most of the lake) has gotten soft. Thicknesses haven’t changed much if at all yet. There is not excessive standing water where we’ve checked in Waconia Bay, so conditions aren’t bad at the moment. If we luck out and get minimal snow, we are much less concerned. When the storm is over and we can assess what the ice conditions will be going forward into next week, we will hopefully be putting our rentals back on the ice. Stay safe!
