First Ice Report Of The Season Is IN!! We have 7"-12" until 3/4 miles out. We will be opening our staked road to Doe Island Reef and Shaws Reef to Snowmobile Traffic Wedsday. 12/11/13
Due to the bitterly cold temps, Staking has been delayed a couple of days. We will now start staking trails to both Shaw's and Doe Island Reef on Friday. There is still quite a bit of snow on the lake and several different areas have large slush pockets. I would highly encourage travel in pairs of ATV's or Sleds as you might encounter difficult travel in isolated areas. If Friday goes as well as anticipated we will be offering help in getting out to these two areas.
We continue to inch our way out. With all of the snow the big lake just is not making ice like it should be with the temps that we have had. We do have a staked trail to Shaw's reef that is open to Sled and Wheeler traffic. If you do bring a wheeler I would give serious thought to chains. We do have a trail running to the south to Doe Island reef but there are still a couple of really slush spots near there and I would feel a whole lot better knowing that I do not have folks down in that direction.
Todays story is slush, slush and more slush. We have been scraping it aside as best we can and our plan is to let it set up tonight and tomorrow. Hopefully the impending snowfall will not bring too much more. If all goes well I anticipate having rentals out starting on Friday the 27th.
UPDATED ICE CONDITIONS: We have had our Ice Crew out, and with no snow it looks promising to start pulling houses this weekend. We will be calling our Private House Owners when we are ready to pull them. Thank you for your patience this difficult Ice Fishing Season. We would like everyone to be safe! Happy New year! The Appeldoorn's Team.
