Worst...winter...ever

I think with the rainstorm this morning, we can safely say this has been the worst ice season ever. I mean really...it's brutally warm for all of December, gets cold for Christmas for 4 days, then gets brutally warm again for a solid month. Then gets cold again for 3 days, now it will be warm again for the rest of winter. Awful. Need to put this season out of my head ASAP!

Fished a Sawyer county lake with family from Wednesday through Saturday.  Our lake had 9" of good ice, and never lost any ice all week / weekend.  Our best family outing for walleye fishing in the last 20years of getting together.

West central.  

OFD, what part of the state are u talking?  Rhinelander / Tomahawk area hasn't lost any ice since Thursday. .  I'm sure it's coming though.

Ice went from 7” on Thursday to 5” this morning.  Came off the ice at 10:30 this morning & the ice was very very noisy. Considering the warm weather forecasted, I am in the process of charging up batteries, cleaning up, organizing everything & putting it all away for this year. Fun while it lasted but gotta accept it for what it is. Kinda sad. 

I cringe every time I look at the ten-day forecast. It just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse!

I just know the lakes that I fish. And they all have really good ice right now. I’m sure there are very dangerous situations out there though. Current. Springs. Lakes that just don’t produce  good ice, etc.… gotta know what you’re doing with conditions like this.

The death in Price county had nothing to do with ice thickness.   Dude cut a carousel in the ice and then drove a utv across it.

Reports are all over the place for ice depth. Local paper reported 4 ATV/UTV through  the ice in the last week or two. I death. Price County.

Crazy warm up is here in the northwoods… 
We have 12 inches now from reports I’m hearing... Definitely concerning with the warm-up and sunny weather coming. I will rest on this hope though. Here are the lows for the next 10 days……24, 25, 7, 5, 23, 26, 28, 8, 6, 13

Tichigan nearly all open.  Good news. Although this comes from a guy that doesnt ice fish I just like to see open water. 

Ice is in great shape up north. 

Latest on ice conditions ​

Great winter, saving on heating the house, easy travel, hardly any time spent clearing driveway, more time for fishing, fishing has been better than other years, easy travel on the lakes, lack of pressure on the lakes, comfortable temps for fishing, been outstanding.

We will have ice into April I would think. The two lakes I was at last week had 11 inches of ice. The warm up didn’t affect much it would appear as far as melting. 
Now, the cold should push those lakes to 15 inches. Even if we have near average temps for the next month plus.., ice should continue to grow. But, this winter has been anything but normal. We will see. It takes a lot to melt ice and if that ridiculous warm up didn’t melt much where I fish. I can’t see things going anywhere for a while. Just my opinion. 

Good story GMan. It happens every year on the big bodies of water. Maybe every year. 
At least I know our bay doesn’t have anywhere to float off to. It would have to go through a channel to hit main lake. (Small 200 acre). 
You better hope somebody gets a signal on their phone once you go floating.