A memory from Nov. 18, 2017, popped up in my Facebook feed the other day.
We were ice fishing on a small lake atop 6 inches of solid ice so smooth it looked like glass.
Not this year. We’ve still got a ways to go before there’s enough ice to convince me to venture out.
Time was, Thanksgiving weekend was kind of the benchmark for venturing out on early ice. I can remember a handful of successful Thanksgiving weekend outings on small lakes in Itasca County of northern Minnesota, but that’s a few years ago now.
A few, as in nearly three decades.
Smaller, shallower lakes are definitely icing over, and YouTubers in some areas already are weighing in with “crazy” and “insane” early ice fishing action in the annual race to be first. As Matt Henson of WDAY-TV reported on Nov. 19, authorities in Lakes Country rescued two teenage boys on Tuesday, Nov. 18, after they broke through thin ice on Straight Lake in Osage, Minn.
This is a tough time of year for those of us who fish. Here in the Northland, we’re in that nasty “tween time,” when most anglers have put away their boats because it’s too cold to sit in a boat – “ice in the eyelets cold,” we used to call it – but it’s not cold enough to make good, solid ice.
And with highs in the upper 30s and even 40s – and lows barely below freezing in the forecast as I write this – safe ice by Thanksgiving is going to be a stretch just about everywhere in this part of the world.
Best-case scenario, early December is probably the more likely option – and that’s provided we get an extended cold snap with temperatures in the single digits or even below zero. On the bodies of water I fish, mid-December, or even closer to Christmas, is the most likely scenario for getting out on early ice.
As the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources clearly states on its website, “there really is no sure answer” when it comes to judging when ice is safe.
“You can’t judge the strength of ice just by its appearance, age, thickness, temperature or whether or not the ice is covered with snow,” the DNR says. “Strength is based on all these factors – plus the depth of water under the ice, size of the water body, water chemistry and currents, the distribution of the load on the ice and local climatic conditions.”
The Minnesota DNR’s ice safety recommendations. (Courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)
With that as a backdrop, the DNR and numerous other agencies offer these safety guidelines for clear ice:
Under 4 inches – Stay off.
4 inches – Foot travel only.
5 to 7 inches – Snowmobile or small ATV.
7 to 8 inches – Side-by-side ATV.
9 to 10 inches – Small car or SUV.
11 to 12 inches – Medium SUV or small truck.
13 inches – Medium truck.
16 to 17 inches – Heavy-duty truck.
20+ inches – Heavy-duty truck with wheelhouse.
And if it’s white, cloudy ice, double the thickness guidelines, the DNR says.
I obviously wasn’t following those clear ice guidelines in November 2000, when I got talked into joining a couple of ice fishing pros onto a small lake somewhere between East Grand Forks and Bemidji. These guys have plenty of “cred,” and we wore life jackets, carried ice picks, and used a spud bar to check the ice thickness as we inched our way out to a spot about 100 yards offshore.
Everywhere we walked that sunny November afternoon, the ice thickness was in the “stay off” category. Here’s how I described the experience in the Sunday, Nov. 26, 2000, edition of the Grand Forks Herald:
“I don’t know the physics behind the phenomenon, but early ice makes one of the creepiest sounds known to human ears when it encounters weight. Every jab with the ice chisel sends a ‘ping-like’ sound rocketing from the point of impact and across the frozen horizon. Certain body parts pucker at the sound.”
For this exercise in bravery – foolishness might be the better word – we were rewarded with a few small perch in about four hours of fishing. Two of us crept our way back to shore before dark, while one of the diehards, who stayed past sunset, landed a 13½-inch crappie.
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As creepy as that long-ago encounter was, I felt relatively safe – relatively being the key word here – because I was on the ice with people I trusted, knew what they were doing and carried safety gear.
I ended the story like this:
“If you don’t have that luxury, I’d suggest you wait a little bit longer. There’ll be plenty of time to fish through holes in the ice.”
Then as now, those are words to live by.
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