Have a safe and Happy New Year! Another inch of snow giving us a total of 12″ of snow on the ground. Weather pattern predicted for the upcoming 10 days looks to be in the 20’s, which is above average for this time of year. If your plans include ice fishing, call ahead to the resort you are staying at for current ice conditions. The Rainy River has not frozen over completely where we have reported open areas. With the reduced water levels, this should help. Mixed reports from LOW.

Looking at the river between Clementson and Silver Creek, there are now 4 open holes and one is growing in size. On Monday the level at the Manitou increased almost a foot again, with the level receding about 5″. Warmer weather has been a treat. Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season.

Cold overnight temps the last 2 nights with warmer weather coming in the forecast. There are still 3 big opens holes between us and Silver Creek, with some of the houses that were out have been pulled in. I did see one vehicle out by a fish-house today.
Depends on who you talk to about the fishing on Lake of the Woods. Reports range from good to slow, but then . . . that’s why it’s called fishing!

FishingMinnesota.com Rainy River forum reports 9″ of ice on the river. We are still getting light snow, after a total of about 6-8″ of snow from the past few days. I also read the current was strong on the river. Looking at data from the internet, I see the Manitou Rapids level is up 3′ so far this month. I-Falls started to release more water into the Rainy about mid-November. This is due to the optimum water level on Rainy Lake, which declines going into the month of January. With the stronger current, the poor ice conditions before all the snow, caution is the word!

According to reports from LOW, they have plenty of ice on the lake and fishng has been mixed.

We can still report areas of open water on the Rainy River between Clementson and Silver Creek. The river was not fully frozen over when we got all the snow, I would suspect the ice is in poor condition under the snow, so be very careful on the river. LOW reports 12″ of good ice and starting today Walleye Retreat will be using their bombardiers for travel.

Looks like the ice-fishing season is off to an early start this year. According to Pete & Terri at Walleye Retreat, they have 6 houses out already. We’ve been “January Cold” this past week, no wonder it’s making ice! Reports of good walleye fishing near the airport on FishingMinnesota.com. Although, Friday we still had big areas of open water on the river between Clementson down to Silver Creek, just a reminder to be careful when venturing out on the ice.

Freezing rain overnight with more forecasted for today, then turning to snow, 1-2″ of snow predicted. Cold weather coming, good for making ice. Pete and Terri from the Walleye Retreat reports 4″ of ice at Four Mile Bay/Rainy River area, Morris Point reports 2″ of ice on the lake. Terri thinks they may be putting houses out this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving! Does it look like it’s freezing over? Check out the webcab from Sportsmans, click here. Overnight temps recorded was 0.0 last night, with colder temps forecasted for the next 10 days. Countdown to ice-fishing begins!

No ice on the Rainy yet and our bay partially opened up with the warm weather today. Seen some boats cruise down the road this weekend. Maybe by this weekend it will start making ice again. Will keep you updated on ice conditions and our availability status for winter lodging!

Who turned the page on the calendar to January? Overnight low of -8 last night with 3″ of snow on the ground sure makes it look and feel like January. It made ice on our bay last night, I assume most bays in LOW iced up. According to the weather forecast, we are going to warm up for the weekend, not that it will make a difference for fishing, that is a done deal until ice-fishing season.
We will be updating on weather, ice conditions and fishing in our area and Lake of the Woods. In the meantime, check out our links, lots of good information!