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#1
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ice fishing safety???
Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario.
The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. |
#2
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ice fishing safety???
check http://www.almanac.com/edpicks/safeicethickness.html
"Fish Styx" wrote in message . 194... Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. |
#3
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ice fishing safety???
Safe if you are a bird or a fly otherwise are you kidding?
Of course you could always walk out & check for yourself! "Richard Oatway" wrote in message . .. check http://www.almanac.com/edpicks/safeicethickness.html "Fish Styx" wrote in message . 194... Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. |
#4
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ice fishing safety???
Fish Styx wrote in
. 194: Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. tell you what to do. Go walk on it and then if you come back a post your answer here, we will know the ice is safe. Wear your pfd though..... |
#5
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ice fishing safety???
How long have you lived in Ontario?
"gpsmaps" wrote in message . 104... Fish Styx wrote in . 194: Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. tell you what to do. Go walk on it and then if you come back a post your answer here, we will know the ice is safe. Wear your pfd though..... |
#6
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ice fishing safety???
1/2 inch is pretty thin. Depends on the type of ice. I have often fished
when the ice was thin enough to see through.....thin enough to poke a hole through it with my heel. One time, (it was in the spring), the ice was clear, very thin and had tiny holes in it. When I walked on it, water would squirt up through the holes as the ice would sag. I was walking with a long thin tree trunk between my legs in case the ice gave in. I was not far from shore and I could see the trout moving around under the ice. When I found a suitable site, (where the ice was a bit thicker) I poked a hole through the ice in about 10 feet of water and put a bunch of branches on the ice where I was standing over about 4 feet of water. The branches supported my weight. I weighed about 140 lbs in those days. I do a lot of ice fishing. I now live in the Saguenay region of Quebec. Lakes freeze in October and thaw in late May and often mid-June. I have yet to go through the ice but there have been some hairy situations. Especially in the Saguenay river where the tides vary 20 feet. Water sometimes gathers over the ice near shore and the ice seperates from shore....it's hard to see the gaps in the ice. Only thing to do is go back off shore and wait it out. Another situation is in late spring it can get very hot. Some days, it gets a bit windy, lots of sun, temperatures in the 20's and the ice quickly deteriorates...especially close to shore. Couple that to "false ice" (I hope that's what it is called in English). I will try to explain "false ice". At the start of the winter, ice forms on the lake. Very often, there is a heavy covering of snow and the ice sags under the weight. Suddenly it cracks and allows the water to enter the snow and this causes the ice to sag more so water accumulates over the soggy snow. This surface water now hardens solid while the poor quality ice (full of air and snow) also hardens. The solid hard additional coat of ice is the "false ice" that has replaced the original coat of ice which is now buried below, separated by the poor quality ice. I've seen 3 or 4 successions of "false ice" and in the spring. Meanwhile, the poor quality ice can get so deep and heavy that it actually starts to turn to slush because water from below keeps soaking into it. When one coat of false ice melts away, we are often left with a foot or 2 of slush. Warm spring rains also add to the problem of the slush. At night, it can go to -20 or even -30 and everything gets frozen rock hard. That is until the temperatures get hot around mid day. I always go fishing in the very early hours of the day (still dark when I get out there) and I keep a close watch on ice conditions close to shore. Even though a snowmobile can scoot over open water, I rarely stay on the ice past noon. When in doubt, I sometimes cut some trees and let them fall on the edge of the lake to make a sidewalk. I do this only when I am far in the mountainous bush and in places where the leaning spruce trees are going to eventually fall by their own weight into the lake. It's a common occurrence up here where the soil is thin over the gravel, sand, old rock crust. 10,000 years ago, this whole area was under a mile or 2 of glacier. Some people haul a fibreglass canoe on the ice in case they have trouble getting off the ice late in the day. Looks kind of dumb, hauling a canoe full of equipment long distances on the ice but not so dumb when it is time to leave the lake late in the day. One day, I was ice fishing on a lake. The ice was about 18 inches thick. Old ice. Not very solid. By the end of the day, I was in my canoe and there was only one little patch of ice pushed up to the far end of the lake by the hot wind. The fishing was great all day. The days get quite long up here. In June at 3 am, it starts to get light and at 10:30 p.m. it's time to start thinking about packing up for the day before it gets too dark. Anyway....long answer but I said "what the hell" not many people are posting here any more. "Fish Styx" wrote in message . 194... Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. |
#7
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ice fishing safety???
Nice link Richard. Thanks
DK "Richard Oatway" wrote in message . .. check http://www.almanac.com/edpicks/safeicethickness.html "Fish Styx" wrote in message . 194... Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. |
#8
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ice fishing safety???
Not even close!!! John A. Vance
Fish Styx wrote: Finally things are cooling down here in Southern Ontario. The local fishing hole has about a half inch of ice on it. Is it safe to fish on? Many thanks for any info. |
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