MARSHALL — Southwest Minnesota has been hit by some blasts of cold and wintry weather in December. But although ice has formed on area lakes, it might still a bit early for ice fishing.

“The ice hasn’t been super thick,” said Rick Konold, at Borch’s Sporting Goods in Marshall. While having time off around the holidays provides people a chance to get outdoors and do some fishing, Konold said he’d be very cautious on area lake ice. “I would use a lot of caution. I wouldn’t be driving out there,” he said.

Based on what he was hearing, Konold said, ice thickness on local lakes varied, but was less than 12 inches. While the Minnesota DNR emphasizes that ice is never 100% safe, the recommended minimum clear ice thickness needed to support a car is 9 to 12 inches, or 13 to 17 inches for a truck.

Ryan Doorenbos, Windom area fisheries supervisor, said reports indicated that ice thickness on area lakes ranged anywhere from about 6.5 inches to 12.5 inches, depending on the lake and the location.

“In general, we are starting to see some action in terms of anglers,” Doorenbos said. Given the ice conditions, people were more likely to use portable tents or shelters instead of permanent ice houses, he said. However, recent weather – with winds gusting up to 60 miles per hour – likely kept anglers off the ice. “That (portable shelter) doesn’t go well with high winds,” Doorenbos said.

On Monday, Minnesota conservation officers in the area around Lyon, Lincoln and Murray Counties reported some ice fishing activity starting up. In a weekly conservation officer report from the Marshall area, officer Matt Loftness said some anglers had been out on the ice, most using portable shelters. Anglers were asked to use extreme caution, especially when parts of the area were expected to see some above-freezing temperatures, Loftness said.

Conservation officer Derek Daniels also reported that the first permanent fishing shelters were starting to appear on lakes in the Lake Benton area.

While periods of high winds might have made things tough for ice anglers this month, the wind might have some benefits for fishing later on, Konold and Doorenbos said.

“The nice thing is, it’s blowing snow off the lakes,” Konold said.

Doorenbos said one of the big threats to fishing at area lakes is winterkill. That can happen when deep snow on top of lake ice blocks out sunlight, and prevents water plants from making the oxygen fish need to survive. So far this winter, “We’ve lost a lot of snow, and that helps going forward,” he said.