We Have A Winner!!!

[40buick]

With a guess of April 18 that was off by "only" 8 days, Fivelines is the official WINNER of Ice Out Contest 10 (or whatever the right number is)!! Congratulations to Fivelines. May your reign be blessed with the catches of your lifetime and may your snags be few and far between.

April 12 is indeed an early ice out. Fully half of the 12 entries guessed dates from April 27 through May 3, certainly a range of dates within which ice could be expected to make its disappearing act. Did WB experience a warmer than normal winter, thus thinner ice? Did WB experience an earlier warm-up that quickly melted a normal thickness of ice? How will all this affect early fishing on WB and nearby waters? Maybe Dick or Wayne or Russ would like to weigh in with their analyses of what this may mean to the 2010 season, like an earlier than normal spawning period, earlier weed growth; i.e., earlier than what would be considered more normal.

Thank you to the 12 brave souls who ventured a guess in this all for fun contest. I'm alrealy looking forward to next year's contest. My anticipation is tempered only by the thought of having to endure another winter to get to another ice out event on beautiful Witch Bay.

[Gail Hockett]

Thank you Lyle,for once again getting the ice out contest going and Thank you to everyone that made a guess. What happened this year with the ice, is that November was a very warm month this year, we didn't even start our winter until December, which made Christmas seem to come upon us very suddenly. Than we got a big snow fall which kept the ice thinner, but it did get cold in January and more snow, the snowmobilers had a great year this year. But than Februarycame and it started getting unusually warm and the snow melted along with the ice. The seagull's came back early, so did the Canadian geese and now our ice is gone, earliest ice out that I can remember.
Yes, it will have an effect on the fishing, but I will leave Dick and Russ go into details. I just think fishing should be really good this year, the lake is down and it is an early ice out, the fish will spawn like they should and I bet the crappie will now get a chance to spawn. It should be a great fishing year. So get ready Llyle, you and the guys will have a lot of fun when you arrive in June. Thank you again Llye, you are amazing.

Always,
Gail

[Fivelines]

Thanks to one and all !! I'm feeling rather cocky right now, even to the point that I should attempt a guess for the 2011 ice-out, but I think I'll wait. Thanks again for all the love and admiration, and if you need some advice on some lottery numbers, feel free to call. Good fishing to all, and I'll see you on the lake in July............Fivelines...............