Well I just got back from checking out the local lakes. Mendtoa has ice out a couple hundred yards in all directions- so we might be done diving there for a while.
Next, I drove to Monona and saw that over a 1/3 of the lake had ice on it. I drove over to the outlet to check it out, since it freezes up last, but the pipe was off and it was full of slushy ice. It looks liek the ice that was there was broken up by the barge- which is now gone.
It does seem possible, in Monona at least, to break throught he skim ice and go play around in deeper water- but it would be a bit of a swim. There are some areas by theoutlet that are open- but it's patchy.
The one place that IS wide open is the Yahara river that connects the two lakes. Vis is excellent, but the depth is rather limited. Might be worth a swim down to look for junk, but I dobt there's any fish in there.
Lake Michigan is still open, but they got beat up by the waves this past weekend. My father-in-law cancelled all of his dive charters as a result of the wind- he can break through ice, but it's no fun in huge waves. I did hear that a couple of my (scuba) buddies were out on one of the deeper wrecks last week and had the best vis they've ever seen there- which means it was well over 100' and approaching 150'. The wreck they were on is 328' long and they could see most of it at all times.
What's everyone else's lake look like right now???
This cold snap is killing my diving and there's a huge storm coming tonight.
Pretty soon it will be time to break out the chainsaws and we can start up again.
Jon