As of now, our access is closed until future notice to everything but walking with portables. There is minimal activity on the lake, as all wheelhouses have been removed. Today, the few anglers coming out have been walking out to go fishing.
We did a quick check on the ice today, 1/31/24. Ben and Avery walked around our frontage and out to Waconia Bay. As you can imagine, the quality of the ice is diminishing. The ice is starting to honeycomb where water has saturated through “rotting” ice. Because of that, there is little-to-no freeboard now (meaning the ice has lost some of its buoyancy and when you drill a hole, there is no gap between the top of the water and the top of the ice).
We have lost a minimum of 1 inch to as much as 2 inches of thickness from our measurements since last Friday’s report. The thinnest area we found before is now down to 4.5 inches (marked with flagging tape between the marinas) with the thickest being 12.5 inches. Much of the ice we drilled was 9 to 11 inches of crappy ice.
The Mase and marina family was saddened with the passing of a very good friend this past week. The marina has shortened hours this Saturday 2/3/24. We will be open from 1 pm to 5 pm so we can attend his funeral in the morning.
