Cloudy/Milk-colored Ice--Long Term Effects on Fishing

[JIvers]

I fished a pond near Iowa City this afternoon that had three inches of cloudy, milk-colored ice on top of three inches of good clear ice this afternoon. The fishing was very good, BTW.

I am thinking that there will be a lot of waters like this in the Midwest this winter, with white frozen slush on top, thanks to the storm and snow that just blew through as ice was forming. I suspect many of those waters, especially small ones like this pond, will see a sharp drop in fishing as the winter goes on.

This milky ice will block a lot of light from penetrating to the water below, much like heavy snow does, and as a result the weeds will begin dying. This in turn chews up oxygen as the weeds decay, and the fish, deprived of oxygen, go in to shut-down mode. It happens most winters, but I think it will be worse this year, because a lot of us are starting the ice season off with cloudy ice already in place.

Myself, I plan to hit the small ponds hard early on, before the oxygen levels drop and make fishing difficult. A thaw could melt this milky ice and refreeze it with clear stuff, but that cure would deprive us of ice fishing.

[john.wells]

I wouldn't sweat it, that is just the way it is. Some lakes get a many inches, if not many feet, of snow and still keep on keeping on. A lot more light gets through than you would think, and given the late onset of ice (comparatively) and the more southern latitude of where you are, I don't think there will be any problems. If there is, there ain't much you can do about it. Nature does what it does.