SORA asked for updates on harvesting from those in the wild rice community. Below are the comments that I have received to date. Note – your area may be different, so use these resources as starting points but nothing beats going out and checking an area yourself.
Ricing is just getting started in the Tower Area (N St Louis County, 8/30/10 ). Heavy wind and rain have negatively impacted our rice crop. The rice crop looked pretty good on a number of lakes but weather has changed that. Ricers will need to get out and field check stands. Best place to start is the 1854 web site. – Tom
Aug 21 at Big Sandy Flowage north of McGregor. Poling was easy due to high water, but our take was small. Heavy rain and wind had stripped off most of the ripe grains, leaving slim pickings. The thicker patches had some green rice still left, but we haven’t had a chance to get back. The beds there have much less rice than they did last year.- Jeff
We flew some MN waters last wednesday (8/25/10) – and now have about 5-6 pictures on our website. GLIFWC
I don’t know what they were getting, but lots of boats – maybe 15+, on Mallard that day, and quite a few on the Big Sandy Complex of waters – which look pretty good in areas from the air. Lower Dean had one canoe out, but it looks like a crop failure due to brown spot – lake is full of rice, but it is not healthy at all, and seed production probably very poor.
Also looked at Kettle Lake near Cloquet, and though it looked good from the landing a few weeks ago, it looked quite poor from the air.
Although access is not available to the general public, Rice Lake NWR looked perhaps the best I have seen it, though some brown spot present. Wisconsin poor over all; lots of disease, and some sites never had much of a stand to begin with.- Peter, GLIFWC
Things in the northeast part of the state are looking O.K. for the most part. I think most places are getting pretty close to ripe. I was on the water early last week in a few places, and was guessing this past weekend or this week for harvesting. I flew some areas last Wednesday and saw some harvesters out.- Darren, 1854 Treaty Authority
Mallard Lake has only about a third othe rice of last year. Probably done for the year by Thurs. or Fri.(9/2/10) if the weather is good. Other local lakes are even worse. Very disapointing year! Too much rain!!! Every secret spot counts this year and so far they aren’t very good either. I only have two left to try!- Lane
Checked out Island River near Isabella on Monday and it was done. Went to Breda today and was disappointed. So many worms this year eating the grains that are left after the wind and rain did their harvest.