One week until Minnesota’s Opener and Most Lakes Still Covered with Ice

As most anglers know, the 2008 Minnesota Fishing Opener is right around the corner.  For many, this means pulling rods and reels out of storage, putting new line on fishing reels and picking up the newest lures.  This year, however, there is one concern for many anglers in the northern half of the state; will the ice be off the lakes by the time opener comes around on May 10?

This winter proved to be one of the colder winters of the past couple years.  The colder temperatures, along with a lack of snow during winter (April is not part of winter), created a very thick sheet of ice on most area lakes.

When the weather finally started to warm up and melt the ice on the shorelines, then we began to receive large amounts of snow.  Many people, including myself, would think that this would put more weight on the ice and possibly push it under the surface of the water.  This, in fact, was not the case because there was too much ice on the lake still.

The snow simply prevented the sunlight from melting the ice.  Instead, the sunlight had to melt the snow on top of the ice before it could begin to melt the ice itself.  The results of this series of events; the lakes still have ice on them.

Now that we have entered the month of May and the fishing opener is just over a week away, many anglers are wondering if they are going to be out on the water for the opener.  Granted, the lakes are opening up throughout the southern portion of the state, but nearly all the lakes in the northern part of the state are still ice covered.

It’s hard to say whether we will have open water up here in Bemidji for the fishing opener, but one thing is certain: whenever the ice disappears, anglers will be out on the water in search of the next trophy or, in some cases, the next fish story.