Winter Kill this year?

With all the extreme cold and snow how's it looking as a year for a lot of winter kills in the state? 1st time I really ever seen one was back around 1983 after a very cold winter and that was on Pell Lake. Right after iceout that spring there was a storm with high southernly winds which took the rest of the ice out and the north shore of the lake was just lined with dead fish of all types. Many very large bass and northerns along with the panfish.

Winter kill happens every year. This year there will be more of it but it's not the end of the world. Harsher winters like this when there is heavier winter kill often precedes some excellent fishing the following year. Many people will see heavier winter kill and stay off of some of those bodies of water that are more affected by it. Less pressure, less competition among species, and you can have some very good success. The bigger concern for me is if we have a real fast warm up after ice-out two things could potentially happen. The first is that fish will spawn with gusto and spawning periods of different species will overlap more making them more susceptible to over harvest and predidation. The second is that when temps warm up too quickly there can be very significant die-offs due to columnaris. It's an infection that fish get when temps jump rapidly and since their immune systems will be weakened by the rigors of spawning they won't be able to naturally stave it off. These are the late spring/early summer die-offs you see almost every year and with a later winter those effects can be more extreme than a winter kill.

I can think of many lakes simular to Pell in size and depth in SE Wi., anyone think there will be a problem this spring?

you might want to check Pell again this year it may do it again that's a pretty small shallow lake,kinda reminds me more of an oversized pond really.