ICE!!

Well it is officially here. Just made a round of Leech Lake looking over jobs and the main lake is capped and I could see not open water at all. I was at Stony Point, Sugar Poiont and Pine Point, along with walker. Agency bay is capped, shingobee is capped and the main lake. Did not make it up to sucker bay or portage but as far as one could see with binoculars I saw ice looking norht form Pine Point and Sugar point. Walker bay is all open. Not ready yet but by next weekend it should be OK if the snow does not mess it up too bad. Other sdmall lakes in the area are capped over as well. Be safe out there and good luck!!

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I checked a few smaller lakes in the area today.

Typically, the small, low elevation lakes (with trees around them to block the wind) are the first lakes with safe ice. From what I can see, there is too much snow on these to form ice fast right now. 1″-3″ of ice with 3″-6″ of snow on top is what I saw on these.

I checked a few bigger (but still shallow) wind-blown lakes and found 2″-5″ of ice with almost no snow on top.

Hopefully, we won’t get any big dumps of snow and we will have some good options by mid-next week or so. With the temps forecast, I would expect some walk-able shoreline ice on the main part of Leech a week from now. Of course, ice is never truly safe, and we must be diligent.

I am with you. Was at Stony Point today checking a job and it was locked up but did not chech how much ice was there. Looked like a couple of smaller lakes were good also. My favorite first ice lakes as we can walk the shoreline and walk out to 6 -10′ of water and catch fish. Hope nobody thinks it is safe yet.