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Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Local angler Richard Anderson was still in his ice house, out on Albert Lea Lake Monday morning. About 10 yards away from his spot on the ice, surrounded by yellow caution tape, was the hole where a shack fell through the ice last week.

It was a sign of what kind of season it’s been for anglers.

Authorities have been issuing thin-ice warnings all winter, blaming the lack of sustained temperatures below freezing, poor snow cover and a cycle of freezing and thawing for the increasing danger. Even though Minnesota law requires that all ice houses be removed from lakes by midnight Feb. 28, authorities are urging anglers to haul them away ahead of schedule. Many anglers are complying.

”It’s a mess,” said Greg Abraham of the state Department of Natural Resources. ”There are ice fishing houses going down all over the place and I don’t know how (the owners) are going to get them out.”

High winds last week, coupled with temperatures in the 50s and rain expected early this week, will further deteriorate the ice, officials said.

Locally, the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Department hasn’t issued any advisories. But with temperatures here in the mid-40s and with rain on Monday, they would like any anglers still out on the ice to start moving off the lake as soon as possible.

&uot;We will try to contact people if things start getting really bad, and let them know if there’s a problem,&uot; said Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Golbuff. They won’t be pulling houses off for people, but they’re ready if they have to rescue anyone, he said.

They might not have to worry about that, because most local anglers have already decided to give it up for the season. By late afternoon Monday, all of the houses on Albert Lea and Fountain Lakes were already off the ice. With open water in the channel, ice houses were taken out of that location even earlier, although several anglers could still be seen sitting on stools or folding chairs as of Monday morning.

Anderson was still holding on to the end of the season, however, in order to spend Monday morning fishing with his great-grandson Morgan Pratt, who was off from school because of the Presidents’ Day holiday.

&uot;He’s been catching all the fish today,&uot; said Anderson, talking about his great-grandson.

The ice was 12 inches thick where he was, but he had pulled the shack in closer to shore after the ice in his original spot got to be too thin. He said the angler whose shack went into the lake ended up spending more than $200 getting it pulled out again.

Anderson was planning on pulling his own house off the ice by mid afternoon. By then, the three or four other ice houses that were still out on the ice would also be gone, he said.

Around the state, the story was pretty much the same.

Over the weekend in Ramsey County, deputies used amphibious all-terrain vehicles to pull in houses from several lakes.

”Conditions are very poor,” said deputy Bob Ellis. ”Even driving that ATV, I could hear and see it cracking. I’ve been driving on ice most of my life, but today I was not comfortable.”

On Saturday, a motorist who drove around barricades to get his fish house off Bald Eagle Lake, near White Bear Lake, broke through the ice. He escaped, but a tow truck had to pull his vehicle out, Ellis said.

Most lakes in Ramsey and Hennepin counties are closed to vehicle traffic because of open water and shifting ice, and the Dakota County Sheriff closed Orchard Lake in Lakeville to vehicle traffic and asked anglers to notify the Sheriff’s department before walking on the ice to try to retrieve their gear. An aerial survey by the DNR has found open water on numerous lakes in southern Minnesota, the DNR’s Abraham said.

Anyone who wants to go onto the ice should probably check with a local police department or sheriff’s office first, said DNR officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.