Good bye ice.. A Michigan routine

[rbalkevitch]

Last year Lower peninsula had about 3 days of good ice. This year maybe  2 weeks of ok ice.  Ever since our record snow and ice 4 years ago, condition dropped off the ice map.

How much and how Logn does the ice stay around  on average where you all are from?

[UFCreel]

going fast shorelines are wet

[FG Steve]

Sorry about your short ice season.  We usually go reliably from December to Presidents Day.  This recent thread may be of interest to you:

http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=339308.40

[eriksat1]

Normally early to mid Dec. until beginning of April. Last year it was cut short we were done by the end of March. But this year so far we have at least 6" more inches of ice than we did all last year. We are holding at 16" - 17" ice right now with the snow on top melting down quick. It is probably going to be a slushy mess out there soon if we don't get some cold here quick. Still only about 9 hours of daylight and lows around 32°f. I don't think we are losing ice yet. I have faith it will be a very cold February as usual.

[gorf37]

Yukon - Canada

Small lakes are safe by mid November.  Some big lakes stay fishable until the end of April!

Why even own a boat? 

[RyanW]

The season isn't over yet. We had way more than 3 days of ice last year and the 2 weeks this year has already been passed. There's been safe ice for a while, the current weather is what's killing us now. It will pass and freeze again before winters over.

[Unclegillhunter]

Here at close to the southern edge of the ice belt it is looking grim through the beginning of next week. But I would rather have it happen now instead of the second week of Feb. like last year! I was out on Sat. Fishing through around 7" of clear ice. The edges are going to melt but they will refreeze and we will hopefully have two or three more weeks around here. So here's hoping for some low temps!
Keep it safe! JDL

[dntbeamenace4031]

Yukon - Canada

Small lakes are safe by mid November.  Some big lakes stay fishable until the end of April!

Why even own a boat? 

the beauty of CO is that if you go up in elevation you'll find safe ice mid-nov through april but there are still plenty of winter opportunities to take out the boat in a Tshirt down in town.

I grew up in NJ and I truly feel for them this year, almost no fishable ice and the next few weeks doesnt look good.

[WalleyeAdventurer]

Just move up a few hundred miles to the Yoop.  Slushy, slush everywhere, but I'm planning on heading out Saturday with 39 degree temps on about 6 inches of solid ice.  After this weekend I might be ice-less for a while though.  At least till mid February that is 

[Glowjigger]

Usually early to mid DEC until early to mid march

[rivereddy]

Ice? what ice?.  Down in Indy we had maybe 10 days of good stuff before Christmas.
I live in the border zone.  We have been on the ice as early as Thanksgiving weekend
and as late as the Ides of March.  In 50 years, I can remember maybe two or three
years when we had an honest 6 weeks of good ice.

This year wind kept the lakes from skimming over.  When they finally did they build
ice, but when it got to about 2 1/2 inches thick the weather would turn warm and it
would rain and get windy again........

fish on, wish I could,

rivereddy