As an update, my buddy and I were crazy enough to try to fish the NW River yesterday. We used our anchors to bust the ice at the ramp. We were hoping the ice might have been just thin enough that we could use the boat to break it. Bad idea. The ice was still more than 2" thick yesterday. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it's frozen all week and this weekend. Looking at the 10-day forecast, I don't see area waters thawing enough to fish until early next week.
We never even got the boat all the way off the trailer. We decided that fishing in 3.5 FOW on the launch ramp may not have been quite deep enough given the conditions.