NWI Ice

[dkeller0716]

Just looked at the long range forecast for NWI. Doesn’t appear we’ll be waiting to much longer.  Guessing 1st week of January.

[zcm_82]

I just checked a few small ponds. One was capped, the other two were about 75%  covered. Popped a few holes around the edges of the capped one and found half to about three quarters of an inch.

[Lee1977]

I’m hoping to get on my pond Sunday, it was completely locked up this morning. With it only getting to maybe 20 it should make ice pretty quick. I’m protected and kind of in a hole so it freezes fairly quick. Before this cold snap it didn’t take much for it to put ice on.   

[dkeller0716]

Man that would be great. Looks like we might get alittle snow next week too.

[zcm_82]

If the wind hadn't been howling for the past 3 days solid, I'm sure all of the ponds around here would be totally locked up. That wind really slows down skinning over.

[coopason]

Drove by Chain of Lakes in Lydick this a.m.
 Ice as far as I could see from the boat launch.
 It was dark and the launch is on the West side of the lake,down a hill.
Also it was 14 degrees.

Will update as conditions improve.

Ron

[Lee1977]

I know I’m in the NE part of Indiana but I can’t imagine it’s much different in the NW part. Went out and ran the spud through and I have a solid 1-1/2” of ice. I’m still optimistic that I’ll get on tomorrow. That wind has really screwed things up! I think it mixed the water enough to keep things from freezing as fast as before. At any rate I can’t wait to get out there! I’ll keep updates on what happens.

[zcm_82]

I know I’m in the NE part of Indiana but I can’t imagine it’s much different in the NW part. Went out and ran the spud through and I have a solid 1-1/2” of ice. I’m still optimistic that I’ll get on tomorrow. That wind has really screwed things up! I think it mixed the water enough to keep things from freezing as fast as before. At any rate I can’t wait to get out there! I’ll keep updates on what happens.

I rechecked the same ponds this morning. All 3 are solid now, aside from a spot geese have open. Ice was 1" give or take on the same pond I poked holes in yesterday. If that wind hadnt slowed the lockup down so bad, I almost bet they'd have been close to walkable today.

[dkeller0716]

Heard that. Be safe out there. 4 inches is my limit unfortunately. Good luck guys.

[zcm_82]

Heard that. Be safe out there. 4 inches is my limit unfortunately. Good luck guys.

I'm 285#, so 3.5-4" is the minimum I'll fish on, but I'll have a careful walkaround on 2.5-3" to check thickness.

[Lee1977]

Just went and checked the ice, not putting much on. I thought it would do better than what it did. I did walk out on it and it cracks a lot yet. I’ll do 3” if we ever get it. We’ll see what tonight does for it. Did drive around and there’s still a lot of open water. Stay safe out there!

[zcm_82]

I was pretty disappointed, too. I was hoping for it to pick up an inch or so in 24 hours, and it got maybe half that.

[tschneid]

I was pretty disappointed, too. I was hoping for it to pick up an inch or so in 24 hours, and it got maybe half that.

I felt the same way. I knew we had a ways to go but wanted things to lock to have any chance to slowly build ice with these temps. My phone app now shows two days in the 40s  next week. Let's hope Jan bring some cold.

[Lee1977]

With the night time temps getting back down in the 20s I’m hoping it doesn’t hurt what we have. If we have cloud cover during the day that will help too. I guess we’ll just have to take what we can get or go north. I haven’t checked yet too see if it’s fishable up there yet but might have to.

[fisher97]

I've lost hope for consistently good ice like we got years ago. Finally get the lakes making ice and the extended forecast shows little hope for a good season. 10 day forecast shows night lows will return to high 20's with days above freezing, and 1/2 inch of rain followed by 1-3 inches of snow this Wednesday & Thursday. Time to head back to Florida.

[zcm_82]

Our first good ice in this area is typically around Jan 15-20, so I am impatient, but not really surprised.

It's been hit or miss for ice seasons the entire time I've lived here. Last year was lousy, so hopefully this one is a bit better. 2019 ended up fantastic, and it started pretty late. Hoping for a repeat of that, where we end up solid from late January-early March.

[Lee1977]

Just went out and did an ice check, got a solid 2.25” of ice. I went out about 30’ to get a good representation. The the thing I did notice was it didn’t hardly do any cracking this morning like it did yesterday. I’m still hoping it won’t get hurt too bad with this weather that’s moving in tonight.

[zcm_82]

I'm a bit farther south than most of you guys. Looks like that rain is going to cut north of me. They've dialed the chance of rain back from 60% to 20% today here.

If it misses, we'll have a fair chance of building  up some ice this week, as long as that shot of rain Wednesday isn't too bad. Aside from Wednesday, we shoud slowly build a bit of ice every day.

[Hexagenia51]

I think the 50 degree rain we got before this last cold snap really warmed the water and that's the main reason we haven't made more ice, even with lows in the teens. Who knows what this weather is going to do anymore? Just hope for some cold weather, I guess and stay safe! Hex

[zcm_82]

I just checked the same ponds again. The two bigger ones were real inconsistent, because they froze over so slow with that hurricane wind. They had 1/2 up to just over an inch. Lots of ridging and white ice around the windward sides.

The smallest one is sheltered from the wind, it had 2" consistently all the way around, nice clear ice, except for right by the overflow outlet, which is always death ice anyway, with that much moving water in a shallow spot.

As long as we don't get a bunch of rain, I would guess the small one will be 3-4" by next weekend. It isn't a real productive pond, but it beats sitting at home, so I'll be out when it hits 4 inches.