Previous DNR News are also available on-line. Many areas of the state are continuing to report open water on many lakes and rivers with boats still out on many waters. Lake Superior is still 43 degrees at the surface, and the small lakes and bays that had begun freezing over during the first week of December may have become more unsafe over the weekend with highs in the 40s.
Wardens report open water across south central and southeastern Wisconsin.
But there is no ice currently safe for recreational vehicles, and ice anglers should not venture out on the ice alone and should use extreme caution, taking rope and ice picks with them. Eight snowmobilers have died in the last two years after they drove into open water or their sleds broke through ice and they drowned. Check with local law enforcement, fishing and snowmobiling clubs or county snowmobile coordinators about the particular waterbody you want to fish or snowmobile on, said Tom Thoresen, chief of recreation safety for the Department of Natural Resources. You really need to know the ice condition on a particular lake before you go, and know where the waterbody has inlets, outlets, and springs. Ice in those spots will be thinner than elsewhere, Thoresen explains.