If anyone’s benefiting from the sustained cold weather in Iowa, it’s anglers.

Freezing temperatures have maintained ice thickness for people to go ice fishing, and there still may be opportunities for the winter sport through this weekend. Guthrie County Conservation Director Joe Hanner estimated there were 12-15 inches of ice thickness when he went fishing last weekend, “The surface was a little rough and inconsistent because of the snow and then a little bit of melt and crusting; and that’s a little bit of an issue just getting out if you’re carrying a lot of gear, you know a sled with all your gear; you know you got to work a little bit harder to get through that crunchy stuff. And in some of the public lakes there’s pretty good trails beat down from where guys have drug their sleds out and stuff so that impacts things a little bit. But it’s not really too bad if you’re pulling it and (if) you have an ATV or UTV, it makes it a lot easier.”

Hanner encourages people to try out the sport this week, but to remember safety measures such as drilling holes to measure ice thickness. You can also check fishing conditions in the Iowa Department of Natural Resource’s weekly report, a link to which can be found here.