Yesterday I spent most of the day grinding rough ice down with the Jeep and my small trail grooming drag to smooth out where the roads will be to Gull Reef, South Spider, Tullibee Road and Popes Reef.  With the rain forecasted for this evening and an abrupt  cool down with strong west winds Wednesday eve and Thursday, Weather forecast this morning said NW west winds with gusts up to 60 mph, so who knows what its going to look like out there after that. If the ice stays put I should have some have some pretty good roads established thru the roughest ice.  From there on out farther we will have to let nature take it’s course until the ice gets thicker.

A little info from all my years out there.  Alot of people say these days that “climate change” is affecting what is happening. (maybe it is)..  But in my 50 plus years, and my fathers years out there there has been times like these for almost 70 years on the ice at Mille Lacs.  I know that is a split second in time in history but that is all I have.  I have pictures to show over a foot of water on the ice on a new years weekend in the early 60’s where I am rowing an aluminum boat “on” the road off shore with my Dad driving in off the lake in his Jeep in the background. In 1984 on December 15th I had 16 rentals on the lake around Gull Reef on 12 inches of ice.  Because I was worried about the weather forecast,  I “shuttled” fishermen out there and wouldn’t let the drive.  That Saturday night it started raining after dark and didn’t let up until morning. I stayed up all night worrying.. When daylight came I went out there, everyone was anxious to get off the ice. When I looked down the holes in the rentals as I was picking them up,  Instead of 12 inches of ice and 8 inch holes, there was 8 inches of ice and 16 inch holes. (from the rain running down the holes like a toilet bowl).  On top of that there were 3 cracks from shore to the reef that were 2-4 inches wide and open and they “bounced” every time I drove over them with the Jeep as i was hauling people in. Somehow I was able to get everyone in safely, went out after they were in and moved all the rentals to new ice. The next day to cold weather set in and away we went for the rest of the year. Unfortunately now there are many more fishermen that try stuff that they shouldn’t on the ice without the knowledge that they should have.  But that is what happens these days…

I’ll let you know if we are going to open the access or not for the weekend on Friday’s report.

Eddy