Ben and Avery spent a few hours today on foot checking ice on Lake Waconia. They started their trek at the Wagener’s Bay access. Heading towards Pillsbury they found a spring on the north side of deep hole just south of the reef (that they made a video about in our earlier report) and marked it and headed on top of Pillsbury and walked over to Center Reef. Where they checked in Wagener’s Bay, Pillsbury Reef and Center reef they were finding mostly 5 to 7 inches of ice. Where there was snow they found 5 to 6 inches of ice. Where the snow blew clean they were finding mostly 7 inches of ice. As they headed south of Center towards “under the wires” (the area between the Island and the Peninsula) some of the snow drifts are deeper. They found as little as 4 ½ inches of ice in deep drifts, but 5 to 7 inches was still the norm. Ben and Avery then ran over to the west side of the island to check on some spring locations from years past and marked 2 of them over there. They walked along the south side of the island to check on some other past spring spots in front of the beach part of the island. They marked the 3 springs that they found there and moved on. Ice thickness along the south side of the island was mostly 5 1/2 inches as there is pretty consistent snow there. From the East end of the island they followed along Cemetery Reef and were again finding 5 to 7 inches of ice. They found less of the 7” in that area because there is more widespread snow. From Cemetery they headed back toward the Marina crossing over the “Walleye Hole” (the area between the 2 marinas). Snow and ice thicknesses were similar to Cemetery Reef area.
Watch our video on our earlier post that shows an active spring they found around 20 feet of water in Wagener’s bay south of Pillsbury Reef. We want to stress that while thicknesses are very good right now, it’s still important to pay attention to your surroundings and avoid areas that look abnormal like our video shows. The springs on Lake Waconia are almost always in the same areas each year. However, there are many years they are dormant or don’t affect the ice. This is one of those years where the springs seem to be more active and could be problematic if you don’t check where you’re going. We mark anything we find with lath board and flagging tape, but it’s impossible to mark everything.
We’ll see you on the ice.
