By John Cross
Free Press Staff Writer
MANKATO
May 04, 2008 01:37 am
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For the last 10 years or so, Stu McKee has kept a record of the average ice-out date on Lake Washington.
The Cleveland resident’s entries are addenda to an ice-out journal he acquired from a longtime Lake Washington resident who began chronicling the average ice-in/ice-out dates way back in 1950.
Over the last 58 years, Lake Washington’s average ice-out date falls on April 6. The earliest the ice ever went out was March 8, back in 1987 and more recently, in 2000.
The latest it ever went out was April 18, 1993. This year, the ice went out on April 16, the second-latest date recorded in nearly 60 years.
Such late ice-out dates on that and other south-central Minnesota lakes followed by an extended bout of unseasonably cool weather since then has meant that water temperatures remain much lower than normal.
Barring an unforeseen dramatic warming trend, anglers fishing area lakes likely will need to resort to different tactics to hook a few walleye when the Minnesota inland waters fishing season opens Saturday.
“I was fishing for panfish on Lake Washington last night and the water temperature was only 41 degrees,” McKee said. While he was marking fish all various depths, he said there was no real pattern to their location.
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Photos
Most of the hoopla of the opening of Minnesota’s inland waters fishing season revolves around the walleye. But if the state fish proves too elusive, then a catch of crappies can sate most anglers’ yearning for a meal of fresh fish. The Free Press