(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s ice anglers have been able to keep pulling in fish by moving north to the Great Lakes region, but the ice there is deteriorating now and the season is coming to a close. The D-N-R’s Mick Klemesrud says the lack of snow is the main culprit. “In a usual winter we’re going to have some snow cover that’ll act as insulation to protect it from these warm-ups in January and February, but this year we don’t have snow,” he says. Klemesrud says the lack of snow protection lets the other elements weaken the ice. “Between the warmer temperatures and the high winds, it really erodes the ice and causes a lot of unevenness. Most ice is uneven to begin with, but this makes it even more pronounced,” he says.

Klemesrud says the deterioration led to a U-T-V breaking through the ice on East Okoboji Lake, a pickup truck broke and a wheel house-style ice fishing shelter also broke through the ice on West Okoboji Lake. “Everything happened super fast. And so that makes it makes it weaker in places that were really, you know, pretty good ice quality a day or two before suddenly had deteriorated to the point where it couldn’t support the heavier ice shacks or vehicles,” Klemesrud says. “So you know, we’re telling people if they’re going to go out, they should be testing the ice frequently, bring your safety equipment with you.” Klemesrud says the cold weather that’s moving in now won’t provide enough continuously cold overnights to build the ice back up before it warms up again.

He says earlier subzero cold stretches this winter did create ice that was ten inches or more think across the state. “And so we did have a lot of thick ice. I mean, Twelve Mile (Lake) down in Union County, we had a lot of good reports, Three Mile (Lake), so those are southern Iowa lakes. And so we did get in a pretty good ice fishing season,” he says. “Now the fishing has still been really good up north, that’s what’s attracting a lot of these people up to the Great Lakes. But unfortunately, we’re just not going to have a normal ice year.”

Klemesrud says you are normally required require to get ice fishing shacks off the ice by February 27th, but most were pulled off recently as ice conditions deteriorated.