Going back to about 2005 there was a long stretch were we had ice the last saturday in Feb here in the Morgan/Putnam Co. area .
I would do the polar punge at Eagle Creek that day, then leave to meet my buddies to ice fish several years in a row. I don't have much confidence in getting ice by then, but I will still cross my fingers.
I have tried to post video of me and my buddy from a few years ago. We were getting our first ice so i called him and he said head over, his pond was good. Got there and he hadn't actually checked, and there was only about 2", maybe. So, not to be denied, we took his two small john boats, slid one on the ice, got in it, slid the other past it, got in the second, and did that til we got to our spot. We then drilled some holes around the boats and preceeded to fill our buckets.