Fishing Forum

I'm afraid my other post may not attract Ice Fishermen to read it due to how I titled it, but I think as I reviewed the topic I have learned that we are probably on the cusp of a very dangerous ice out this year. From my research and observations I have noticed that the ice sheet is getting very weak even though the temperatures are very low so far.  The articles I referenced show that spring ice should not be judged by black ice standards. It shows how solar radiation actually melts the ice even though the temperature are below freezing, when the ice melts out of the crystaline structure the water drains out of the ice leaving air passages where the water melted out, this greatly weakens the ice to where it requires a significantly greater thickness to support the same weight... I have been seeing these conditions develop and it deteriorates very quickly once it starts to go bad...  

Sooo my warning is make sure you take your spud with you and use it often to check ice conditions, they talk of how during the day while you're fishing, the ice can go from ok to weak enough to not hold you... Most of the time we get an obvious melt out and we don't get into too much trouble, but this year, it seems like the ice conditions should be fine with the temperatures we're seeing but we have the solar deterioration going on that is cutting the ice strength from within, so I think we all need to pay attention to this condition this year, because they claim the highest level of ice fatalities are due to spring ice, so let's not have one in our watch area... Later Jeff

We’ll said Jeff!

Yup. Ice be thick but degrading in this rain/warmup cycle. Thin spots can be lurking like a corndog in a hot tub. Still lots of good ice reports but well worth the extra effort to test.

Don't know if you guys seen the story on KSL yesterday about the 3-4 people that fell through Bountiful Pond, but the ice is really going bad fast this year, be safe and be ready to self rescue if you choose to go out on it... I probably did my last ice trip on Cutler last night, the ice cut with my auger like a snowcone no shavings only round bits of slush, there was a 3" surface layer of nasty ice followed by a couple inches of water and then maybe 2" of garbage ice under that I don't know how it held me up, but the water is only a couple feet deep at most and I was prepared to fall through... Problem was all that risk and I got skunked... Really not worth the risk, but with the storm coming I was pretty sure it would be my last ice trip of the season... At least on that pond... Later Jeff