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I’m not sure about the rest of your guys but I for one am ready for open water. I’m wondering if the ditch and possibly the route to Gary are ice free with the strong south winds the last few days? Anyone know? I can’t recall the web site that shows the satellite images of the Great Lakes. Any help with that would be greatly appreciated as well. Thanks in advance for any info. 

I would guess its fairly open.  Just look at the sat images.  You can find them on this site under weather.  

Satellite Modis (thesouthend.org)

Drove by Portage this morning saw 7 trailers parked by ramp. 7 or 8 vehicles at Portage lakefront park pier fishing. 2 Boats came back in ditch from the west and a few ice chunks floating around. Didnt see any catching going on.

Drove by to check it out this past weekend, was surprised at how clear the water was already.  Some ice floating like it was mentioned, but lots of open water

took kayak to end of ditch yesterday and it was chocolate milk...nobody had any fish...two others in kayaks....one boat came back from us steel w/o any fish...no hits...there were some 5 footers out there yesterday and ice chunks were hard to see...so be careful....all the rain last nite will mean it will be unlikely to be good in the ditch for a few days at least...one person i know did get 5 nice coho at us steel lastwk....so pretty soon it will be coho fever time....some lakers still being caught but not like ~3 wks ago.....some good reports of browns down at us steel before the south and north gales hit....thats all i know

Thanks Steve 

Went out just over a week ago up and down the ditch, ice stacked at mouth so just casted and flatlined with two lines inside. Buddy (User LUND on the forum) got a decent brown and I had a couple taps on a 1/4 oz jig/3 inch white twister tail with squid but didn’t land anything. Plan to try again hopefully Tuesday. Ready for the coho! Brown was caught on a 2/5th oz Chartreuse/Chrome Little Cleo, caught and released successfully. 

Hopefully warmer weather next Week?

Thanks for report,. Spring and coho coming soon.

Very soon