Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Mild weather brings out trolling boats

The steady stream of pickup trucks towing boats to Saxon Harbor on Friday along Wisconsin 122 was a sign spring has arrived early on the Gogebic Range.

On the calendar, there's officially another week of winter left, but it seemed like mid-spring on Friday as temperatures reached the upper 50s.

There's still some ice in the harbor and the main boat landing was closed by the Iron County Forestry Department because ice is undermining the wooden dock there.

The other boat landing at the end of the parking lot across from the campgrounds was open, however, and the lake was as mild as glass, with a greenish-blue tint.

Most of the fishermen were trolling close to shore.

Oronto Creek at the County A bridge at the harbor was jammed with ice chunks on Thursday, but the stream broke open and was flowing freely on Friday. That meant flooding at the harbor is unlikely this year, barring a heavy rainstorm.

There was no safe ice fishing out of Saxon Harbor this winter and ice shacks were reportedly already being removed from the Chequamegon Bay in Ashland on Friday.

The mouth of the Montreal River remained mostly snow- and ice-covered on Friday morning, but it, too, may break open soon with the early rapid snowmelt.

The high temperature for the 24-hour period to 7 a.m. Friday in Ironwood was only 38 degrees, but the thermometer shot up to 57 on Friday afternoon. It was still 52 at 6 p.m.

The high for the period will fall short of the 62 degrees recorded on March 12, 2012.

The snow depth of two feet earlier in the month at the Gogebic-Iron Wastewater Treatment Plant had dwindled to 10 inches on Friday.

Only 1.5 inches of snow has fallen in March on Ironwood and many farm fields are now bare.

The average temperature for the month is 17.5 degrees, or 3 degrees above the 114-year average.