In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/13/2022 - Access is OPEN for use to cars and trucks with single-axle houses

We have opened our access to cars and trucks up to 1-ton that can haul up to a single-axle fish house (commercial use of our access is not allowed). Sorry, no tandem or larger fish-houses allowed behind cars or trucks this weekend. We will announce later when will allow those. We will be monitoring the snow situation for Friday and will begin to plow a road from our access once the snow ends and the wind allows for us to plow safely.

We now have ALL 5 of our Fish House Rentals available! 2 of them are our Ice Castles that are 8 holers and two are 6-hole houses and one is a 5-hole house. We drill the holes, the heat is on and ready for you too fish! They are currently located around 10 to 13 feet of water for good daytime sunfish and evening crappies! If you’d like to make a reservation, please call (952) 442-2096.

We’ll see you on the ice.

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/10/22 - Access open for cars and 1/2 ton trucks starting Tuesday 1/11/22

Ice Update - Today 1/10/22 we were finding between 10” and 16” of ice. I was concentrating on seeing how much ice we gained in the deeper snow drifts. Common ice in the deeper drifts is 11 inches. The least I found today was 10 inches of ice. I am having to work pretty hard to find 10 inches of ice and those spots are shrinking! Surrounding ice near those drifted areas was 11 to 16 inches today.

On Tuesday 1/11/22 We are opening our access to driving! We will be allowing cars and up to ½ ton trucks through our access. We will be allowing single axle wheel houses behind trucks LATER in the week. We currently have a road that ends north of Waconia Bay (12” to 13” of ice on that plowed road). We will continue that road out towards Center Reef and Pillsbury Reef tomorrow ( the ice where that road will be was between 10.5 and 16” where I checked today).

As always, we can never guarantee ice. If you use our access it is drive at your own risk. We do our best to report thicknesses to you but can’t cover it all, so we always advise you to do your own ice checking before going out, especially with a truck and fish house.

Our access rate if driving vehicles, ATV’s or Snowmobiles is $5 per day on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays and $3 per day Monday through Thursday. If parking and walking out through our access, it is $2 every day.

Our Fish House Rental season is underway! We’ve got 3 rentals on the ice. 2 of them are our Ice Castles that are 8 holers and one is our 6-hole houses. We drill the holes, the heat is on and ready for you too fish! They are currently located around 10 feet of water for good daytime sunfish and evening crappies! If you’d like to make a reservation, please call (952) 442-2096.

We will see you on the ice!

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/7/2022 - Access remains CLOSED for cars and trucks at this time

Mother Nature has done her part bringing bitter cold to help ice growth on Lake Waconia. However, we were still surprised how the existing snow on most of the lake has kept things from progressing how we had hoped and getting us the numbers we want where we checked (Waconia Bay, “under the wires” between the island and peninsula, Center & Pillsbury Reefs and Wagener’s Bay). The thinnest ice we were finding under heavy drifts was 9.25 inches, with 10 inches being common. Overall, much of the ice where we have checked in common snow thicknesses is between 10.5 to 12 inches of ice. You can find 13 to 16 inches of ice in scattered locations where there is no snow. Unfortunately we are finding enough of the 9.5 to 10 inch ice that we are NOT comfortable opening up our access to cars or trucks at this time.

We want nothing more than to open our access for cars and trucks, but need to let the ice get a little thicker before we do so. In order for some of that to happen, you may see us plowing our frontage, but that doesn’t mean our access is ready for continuous traffic. We’ll update as soon as we know more. As for now, we are still allowing 4-wheelers and side-by-sides with single-axle fish houses to be pulled with those machines.

We will be open this weekend from 8 am to 5 pm and 9 am to 5 pm during the week.

We'll see you on the ice!

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report 1/3/22

 Monday January 3rd, 2022

Here is another quick ice update video.

We are still NOT allowing Cars and Trucks on our access yet. ATVs and side by sides are allowed, along with single axle wheel houses.

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report 1/1/22

 Here is a quick video ice report for the start of 2022.  

We are NOT allowing Cars and Trucks on our access yet. ATVs and side by sides are allowed, along with single axle wheel houses.

Happy New Year!

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 12/29/21

We headed out on the Polaris Ranger today (12/29/21) to get an ice update. We started at our access and checked some ice at and between the following areas- Waconia Bay, Under the Wires(between the island and peninsula), Center Reef, Pillsbury reef, Deep hole in Wagener’s Bay, Harm’s Point , south side of Coney Island, Cemetery Reef and then “The Walleye Hole” between the marinas. There is a fair amount of snow on most of the lake. You will see in the video attached to this post how the lake looks and how the ice thickness varies depending on how much snow is sitting on it. We found ice between 7 and 10 inches thick today. Most of the holes drilled today were in the 8 to 8 ½ inch range. 9 to 10” of ice is what we found on some of the small areas that have no snow.

It’s important to remember the springs that we marked exist and there is always a chance there are springs we haven’t found on the lake that will affect the ice. This year seems to be a very active spring year. We have marked some more small springs and bubblers in the Waconia Bay. We have noticed more gas pockets in the ice of Waconia Bay and Wagener’s Bay than most areas we have checked on the lake. If you want to err on the side of caution, waiting for thicker ice than we normally feel comfortable with isn’t a terrible idea.

We will be allowing single axle wheel houses pulled with atvs or side by sides through our access starting Friday 12/31/21. We will not be allowing cars or trucks through our access (even for shoreline parking) until ice improves more.

See you on the ice!

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice & Springs Report - 12/23/21

We want to preface this report that Lake Waconia’s ice is in very good condition for walking. After drilling hundreds of holes the past few days and checking ahead of themselves, Ben and Avery were comfortable enough to take the marina’s side-by-side Polaris Ranger on the ice to cover more ground. They spent a lot of today marking the springs on Lake Waconia that we had in our GPS from previous years. All of them were active enough to be a problem so we marked them with lath board and flagging tape. Most of the ice that we measured while heading to the springs was measuring between 5.5 and 7.5 inches. We have done our best to mark everything we are aware of, yet we can’t say we’ve marked all the springs on the lake.

Based on the ice we’ve measured the past few days, we are allowing 4-wheelers and side-by-sides through the marina access starting Friday. We are not allowing wheel houses or permanent fish houses through our access at this time. Remember to check ahead of yourself when heading out. Here are coordinates for many of the active springs that were marked today…

E. of Cemetery Reef: 44° 51.586’ N 93° 46.474’ W

W. of Anderson’s Reef: 44° 51.673’ N 93° 46.263’ W

S. of Reinke’s Reef: 44° 52.660’ N 93° 46.246’ W

N. of Red’s Reef: 44° 52.460’ N 93° 46.230’ W

Between Keg’s & NW Side of Island: 44° 51.987’ N 93° 47.241’ W

S. of North Reef: 44° 52.351’ N 93° 47.113’ W

SE Side of Keg’s Reef: 44° 52.136’ N 93° 46.939’ W

S. of Red’s Reef: 44° 52.044’ N 93° 46.346’ W

East of Island: 44° 51.651’ N 93° 46.567’ W

East of Island: 44° 51.639’ N 93° 46.567’ W

Between Wagener’s Bay Access and Rock Dock: 44° 51.608’ N 93° 48.159’ W

Between Keg’s & NW Side of Island: 44° 51.940’ N 93° 47.225’ W

N. of NE Side of Island: 44° 51.832’ N 93° 47.146’ W

SW of North Reef: 44° 52.334’ N 93° 47.298’ W