Usually by late April, another spring season has arrived – for me, anyways. The cabin gets opened for the year, I pick-up my boat from winter storage, and scramble to make preparations to fish within the next day or two. It’s the most exciting time of the year! Nowadays, ice-out can happen even earlier if the conditions are right for it, which is what recently happened in March of 2021 and also occurred in late March of ‘24. Ice was never able to firmly form either winter, and a warm March quickly melted everything. Other years, it’ll gradually go anytime in April. Typically, ice-out coincides with the walleye opener week, which in Wisconsin is the first Saturday of May. These last few years, thanks to Wisconsin’s new year-round bass regulation, I’m willing to bet that my boat is the first one in the entire region to go smallmouth fishing. In the process, we still fight and plow through remnant ice drifts, and cast our lures on top of them. What a unique experience! But this year I am off to a very late start, not making my first cast until April 28th. Cold weather and 40-degree water temperatures mentally affect anglers. Most are lacking cold