In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/28/23 - Access is now open for vehicles with single-axle wheel houses...read below to be prepared for the conditions.

Starting today, Saturday 1/28/23, we are once again allowing vehicles with single-axle wheel houses on through our access! We checked areas off the road to see how the layered ice is healing. It has gotten much better in the past 2 days. It’s not perfect, however. There will be plenty of locations scattered everywhere that will still have a top, thinner sheet of snow-covered ice, then water, and then the main ice sheet. We need more time and cold for it to completely heal. Thankfully with the driving wind on Friday, the snow was packed down to allow the cold to penetrate further and lessen that water gap, and in some cases fused the ice sheets together.

The access and road from the marina is in great shape and heads past Waconia Bay, out towards Center Reef and then to Pillsbury Reef connecting up with the system of paths created by others. The banks on the edge of the road are extremely hard and will not have healed as much underneath. There will be water, slush and likely potholes where you create a new path through the road bank. For those reasons, we are currently not plowing off-shoots to get off the road as we usually do.

What does that mean if you are planning on bringing out a single-axle wheel house? Scout ahead of yourself without your house by chiseling or drilling to get a sense for how layered the ice is. Be prepared with a 4-wheel drive vehicle, shovels, a tow strap, chains or sand for traction and a friend with another 4-wheel drive vehicle if you’re planning on going anywhere that hasn’t been used by anglers yet. If you’re heading to a spot that has had lots of activity this year, you’ll likely deal with rutted, bumpy ice, but less of a chance to have layered ice. If this year has told us anything, nothing is uniform on the lake.

Keep in mind we are a pay access and our fees are for access use only. We are not a tow service.

We’ll see you on the ice!

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/26/23 - Access will be open for limited use again Friday, 1/27/23

The access will be open for bringing portables out by walking, ATV’s, side-by-sides, snowmobiles and vehicles this Friday, 1/27/23. We will NOT be allowing permanent skid or wheel houses to be brought on through our access at this time. However, those wishing to remove your house from the lake may use our access if you talk to us.

The reason we continue to not allow permanent houses onto the lake through our access is that currently there remains too much water/slush sandwiched between layers of ice off the road. While things are healing, you will see a snow layer on top, a thinner frozen layer of ice, water/slush, and then the main layer of ice. Until that water/slush layer firms up, the likelihood of getting stuck is very high for anyone trying to go off the road with a fish house. The recent colder temps helped, but we need several more days of extreme cold to fully heal that water/slush layer up. It likely will not happen by the weekend. If it does, we will certainly update what we allow.

For those looking to bring a portable out with a vehicle, currently the road from the marina is in excellent shape until you get about a mile out. Once you get to the Center Reef area heading left to Pillsbury it gets jagged and bumpy. Again, this doesn’t mean things off-road are great for portable fishing. Be prepared for the conditions as you will likely be dealing with water wherever you set up. Give space to the permanent houses on the lake to limit potential flooding as that will continue to happen in some areas.

If you’re looking to go ice fishing with more ease and comfort, we still have 3 of our rental fish houses in Waconia Bay available to rent. The heat will be on and the holes open. Our 2 Ice castles have TVs so you can watch your favorite game on network TV or hook up an underwater camera you can rent from us. We also have rental rod and reel combos if you don’t have those. If you’d like to know more, check out our website at www.InTowneMarina.com

We’ll see you on the ice!

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/23/23 - No ATVs, Vehicles Yet

 We checked on Lake road conditions again today. In areas that were in rough shape things continue to improve, but need more time. Off the roads things are firming up more but there is water and slush under a crust in most areas we have been today.  For a short time our Access will continue to remain closed to everything but walking. Realistically we will allow ATV and vehicle traffic through our access before the weekend, but might not be  allowing wheelhouses or any permanents on through us for a bit yet. When the slush has firmed up off road more we will open things up to permanents.

 We still have 3 of our rental fish houses available in Waconia Bay for those happy to walk to them. We will be driving to them soon.  Give us a call at (952) 442-2096 to set up a reservation. We do not rent overnight.

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia Ice Report - 1/22/23 - See our video update on why our access remains temporarily closed for use other than walking with portables

 

Happy Sunday. We continue to keep our access temporarily closed other than walking out while we wait for ice roads further out to firm up. Watch the video above to see what is holding us back from opening things back up. We need more cold to heal things up completely. Thankfully our road from the marina into Waconia Bay remains very good, so if you're coming out fishing with a portable it'll be an easy pull until you get off the road. It will still be wet with slush off the road, so be prepared for that.

We still have 3 of our rental fish houses available in Waconia Bay for those happy to walk to them. Give us a call at (952) 442-2096 to set up a reservation. We do not rent overnight.

Fish House Rental Prices & Policies

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia - 1/21/23 - Access remains closed today other than for those walking with portables

Good morning. Our access will remain closed today (Saturday 1/21/23) for any use other than walking with portables. We are waiting for more cold to firm up some of the lake roads that had several inches of water on them. They are starting to freeze, but if we drive on those areas, extreme ruts and jagged ice will occur. Thanks again for your continued patience.

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia - 1/20/23 - Access remains temporarily closed for any use other than walking with portables...

Our access remains temporarily closed all day today (Friday, 1/20/23) for any use other than walking with portables. We understand that may be unpopular with some of you. We wish to have our access open more than anyone. We are keeping it closed so that water and slush further up the road can freeze properly and limit potholes and rutting that will impact use the rest of the winter. Currently there are stretches of our road past Waconia Bay leading to Center and Pillsbury that still have several inches of water and slush between snowbanks. As for roads others have plowed, you’ll likely find significant water, slush and ice chunks between the banks of the roads in Wagener’s Bay.

We hope temps get cold enough overnight that we see improvement with more freezing of the slush on our main road to allow us to open the access up for vehicle use sooner than later. It may remain closed this weekend depending on how that goes. Even when we do open the access, it won’t magically mean things are easy getting around off the road to bring a fish house. We are seeing even more wet slush off the roads under snow than this past weekend. Truthfully, we don’t expect the slush situation off the road to improve until we get further into next week when the deep freeze hopefully comes. Therefore, if we do open the access back up, it will likely only be for vehicles without fish houses for a bit. For those coming out to walk on with a portable, be prepared to set up well off the road, away from others’ fish houses and look for “higher” ice that has re-frozen so you limit flooding around you.

We will update you with our access and lake road situation when we see improvements in the coming day(s). In the meantime, we continue to preach patience. We hope our decision to limit our access use will help things heal on the ice to allow for better and easier ice fishing ahead. Have a good weekend.

In Towne Marina Lake Waconia - Bait shop closed early at 10:30 am today (1/19/23) and access blocked until we assess it and ice roads tomorrow.

The bait shop has closed early today as of 10:30 am. The marina access will be closed and remain blocked until we assess it and the ice roads tomorrow. Thanks!