Red Lake 2013 ice-out is going to be late

With only a month to go before 2013 opening day, it seems a certainty now that ice-out on Red Lake and other Northwestern Ontario lakes will be late. In fact, it might even set a record.
The record-late ice-out for Red Lake is May 23.
At Bow Narrows Camp we can almost always get our customers into camp at least a week ahead of ice-out by flying them in floatplanes from the Chukuni River in town, where the ice melts the fastest, to the narrows in front of camp, another place where the ice melts quickly along with the shallow bays where we do most of our fishing.
We have now contacted our guests the first week of the season to see if they would like to change reservations to a later date or take their chances on opening week. If you are booked the first week and haven't heard from me, please call me at our winter phone number.
If you are booked at another camp in Northwestern Ontario, you should probably give them a call to see what the scenario is there and what are the options. Each lake has its own pattern for ice-out. There may be no problem at all for some camps. Shallow lakes open up the soonest as do those that have strong currents. Road camps may have a contingency plan to trailer boats to bodies of water that open the soonest.
The ice-out problem is the weather. It just isn't warming up.
Die, winter! Die!
Red Lake still has over three feet of ice and 18 inches of snow on top. It takes about a month of normal spring temperatures to melt all of this. The 14-day forecast doesn't show normal temperatures occurring for another two weeks yet; however, it must be noted that long-range forecasts are notoriously inaccurate.
Even though the air temperature may only be getting a few degrees above freezing in the day, the lake ice continually melts from the water beneath it. What really helps is for the snow on top to melt off, exposing the dark-coloured ice to the sun.

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