Yesterday I made the first runs with the Jeep and drag out to the NE side of Gull Reef after spending the morning checking the ice depths.  What was rough ice is now a smooth road out there.  If all goes well today  fishing spots around Pope’s, Spider and the Basins SW of Spider will have smooth roads.

This year we will have some large areas of “piled ice” in some of the spots we normally put some  of the houses.  It is layers of 4″ thick ice plates that piled up last Friday night when the strong NW winds pushed the main lake ice back towards us.  Some of the areas have piles from 4 to 8 feet tall and 20 to 50 feet wide. For the amount of weight there is above the ice most of the piles must be sitting on the bottom or they would have started sinking by now,  Eventually they will settle some as the ice on the bottom melts, but it will be awhile. Fortunately we have a couple good areas to get thru it, but our road system will be somewhat different this year because of it.  Once I get more checked out I will put it on a map and post it.

The next weeks worth of weather shows a gradual warm up and possible rain next Tuesday so I’m not going predict when we will be getting houses out for a while. At this stage of the ice thickness if we are going to get precipitation I’d rather see rain than a bunch of snow.  With as rough as the ice is in some areas some rain could smooth things out some.

We will be open starting Friday for portable anglers with ATV’s and snowmobiles. We received just enough snow to make snowmobiles work well yesterday.  Park in the field along the driveway as usual and check in at “The Barn”.  The Red House Office has officially been retired!

With the moderating temps it will be a good weekend to portable..

Eddy