Lake of the Woods — Warm-Winter Talk, a Nervous Lodge Owner, and Ice That Still Shows Up (Eventually)

Every Minnesotan has a weather uncle. Mine forecast winters off the woolly bear caterpillars on his driveway, and he was right about as often as a coin flip with a cap on. So when real climate people start talking about this winter, I put my coffee down and listen.

This one isn’t a bite report. It’s the conversation every ice angler headed for Baudette is about to have, so we’re passing it along.

The worry, in plain words

The Bemidji Pioneer ran a piece Oct. 31, with reporting credited to the Grand Forks Herald, about a “Super” El Niño this winter. Forecasts from NOAA and the Minnesota DNR lean toward a winter that’s warmer than normal with less snow than normal across the state, the north end included.

Pete Boulay, a DNR climatologist, says this year’s outlook goes further than past El Niño winters did. He called it “uncharted territory.”

The man most likely to be watching the thermometer is Vince Ojard, who runs Border View Lodge up in Baudette as its GM. The lodge lives on winter, roughly eight times busier than summer by his count. He says they had more than 9,000 anglers through last winter, and with the sleeper houses that adds up to a few hundred people on the ice every day. “My books depend on that weather,” he said. Fair enough. Mine depend on whether the truck starts.

The part worth holding onto

Boulay’s other point: in every El Niño winter so far, Minnesota’s lakes have still frozen. What might change is how long the ice sticks around. It could go out earlier. The article puts the usual start of ice fishing near the lodge around mid-December. Our Oct. 27 tourism card had day houses usually moving out around Dec. 10 (that write-up). Those timings are what normally happens. Neither one is a promise for this year.

Our read, not theirs: a warm November could push first ice back a bit and make the early shelf ice extra tricky. That’s a guess. Nobody quoted in the piece gave a date.

How to handle first ice this year

The article spells it out, and we’ll say it louder:

• Extra caution this year, because nobody really knows what this El Niño will do.
• Talk to the bait shop. They hear the ice reports first.
• DNR conservation officers keep track of ice conditions too.
• Check the DNR’s current conditions page before you go.

We can’t vouch for any ice, anywhere. The story doesn’t report any ice yet, and when ice does show up, it’ll be the folks drilling test holes who tell you, not us.

Meanwhile, on the Rainy

The fall fishing hasn’t stopped. On the second weekend of October, Border View ran the 16th Chili Bowl, a walleye-and-sauger tournament, on the Rainy River. Teams of two fished it, from the public access by the lodge to about 15 miles upriver. The field usually runs about 75 teams. This year it came in 15 teams light, and Ojard still called it a success. A Park Rapids-area team won the $6,000 top prize. There was chili, obviously, and the rules meeting came with prime rib, which beats the gas-station sandwich I call a “rules meeting.” People are already signing up for next year, and he says he’s booking as far out as 2030.

Honestly

There’s something nice about a lodge manager admitting he’s nervous. People who live off a lake can’t fake being calm about the weather. Root for a cold, steady freeze up there. It’s good for them, and it’s good for everyone who’s been dreaming about a sleeper house since about April.

Fine print

This is an outlook and feature story, not a fishing report. It has no current bite information, water temperatures, or ice thickness, and we didn’t add any. The forecasts are predictions. The mid-December and Dec. 10 timings are typical years, not this year’s schedule. The tournament was fished back on the second weekend of October, so it’s older news. Never trust ice because of the date. Ask the bait shop and look at the DNR page every time.

Sources

• Bemidji Pioneer (Northland Outdoors), “Minnesota climatologist says El Niño could impact ice on lakes this winter,” Oct. 31, 2026
• MN DNR current conditions
• Prior card: Lake of the Woods, Oct. 27