To give you an idea how warm it's been this winter, Lake Sakakawea finally just froze over this weekend.  According to an article on KX News, this is the latest it's ever taken for the lake to completely ice-over.  The previous longest date for the lake to freeze-over was back in the winter of 2011-2012 on January 18th.  So we broke that record by 6 days.  I know I went up to Bottineau to watch my son play hockey a week ago, and when we drove by Sakakawea, there were ice fisherman on Audubon, and you could see open water on the other side of the highway.  Very strange for this far along into winter.

According to data from the Lake Sakakawea/Garrison Project at Riverdale, based on the measurements, the lake froze over on Sunday, January 24th.  So if you're thinking about heading out to do some ice fishing on the big lake, you might want to wait awhile, as the ice is very thin in many areas.

Defiantly not a good year for making ice and ice fisherman in general.  In fact it's been downright dangerous this winter on area bodies of waters.  There's been several reports of vehicles, snowmobiles  and people going through the ice on North Dakota waters.  The North Dakota Game and Fish recommends when you're on new waters, to drill your way out to your spots, rather than just driving to some place on a body of water.  You're better off to be overly cautious on lakes that you do not know very well or the depth of the ice.


 

 

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