Northern Ice fishing

We hit the deck at Mantua on Saturday and it's the only time in all my past years I have been there on a nice sunny weekend day where we and another group with 4 anglers where the only ones on the deck fishing, and after we fished untill 2:00pm and got skunked! we left, the ice was still thick and the edges weren't to slushy to get off, I know it's been hit & miss up there this season, but was there something we didn't hear or know about ? it was just a weird not seeing the crowds, however we had a good fun day.