Blue and Mild

January 7th through 13th

The general trend last week could be described as cooler. This was not completely unexpected for this time of year. Historically, the lake is near the most Wintery part of Winter. It's the time of year where the days are slowly getting longer, yet ice-out seems eons away. Ice-out will come, but there will be lots of hat wearing between then and now.

There was snow! Early in the week we got about 3 inches before the precipitation turned into rain.

The damp air combined with cold nights to put a nice coat of frost on the hills around Lake Lucerne.

Lucerne's chunkier sister lake has attracted hundreds of ice shacks and fishermen. From the numbers it looks like "they're biting".

Judging from the traffic on Wabikon, it looks like "they're biting" there, too.

Even Lake Lucerne has attracted a few tip-ups.

The angling action on the lake seems to be centered around the north side of the islands. The shack density is a far cry from the city that sits on Metonga, but it's bigger than I can remember for Lucerne.

The naughty water skier slot between the islands had a few snowmobile tracks but was completely fisherman free.

With the exception of the East shore, the South end of the lake has some of the worst conditions for snowmobiling in Wisconsin. The almost frictionless ice is dotted with drifts of snow. Transversing this area with any kind of speed is a bucking, fishtailing horror.

The North end of the lake has a more uniform snow cover and fewer (pronounced "No") fishermen.

The inflection point of Winter, January 17th, is just a few days away. This implies that last week was the probable peak in the advances of Winter's cold campaign. While this is not Winter's end, it is the end of Winter's beginning. Don't put away your hat just yet. That, and fort construction for the 28th Annual Lake Lucerne Bottle Rocket War starts in just under a week.<br><br>-Nemo enjoys the snow. The ice, not so much.