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01-28-2004, 01:05 AM
Steve Pollick | Article published January 27, 2004
Good advice when ice fishing: Never go with the floe
News item Friday: "South Bass islanders blaze trail to mainland."
News item yesterday: "14 people rescued from Lake Erie ice."
What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, really. It is perfectly logical that unqualified publicity in the first story would create the mindset and circumstances that lead to the second.
But in both cases, a lack of common sense is missing.
A widely circulated news feature, a wire copy of which even was run in this newspaper Saturday, celebrated the pioneering nature of the snowmobile-riding islanders. But it never questioned the prudence of their decision to cross one of the most dangerous stretches of water, or ice, on the Great Lakes - the "Slop Chute" that separates Catawba Island peninsula on the mainland and South Bass Island.
The publicity attending such stunts in turn lends them legitimacy. Then the unknowing and the inexperienced can come from afar to land in the lap of trouble.
Summertime boaters on western Lake Erie, if they have any experience at all, know how many and varied currents squeeze through the South Passage, as the Slop Chute is more formally known. The Passage usually is choppy, with waves and wind and wakes coming from all directions. It calls for alert piloting.
But apparently it is rocket science to some folks to understand that the same tricky currents snake beneath the ice, unseen in winter, dangerously eroding ice that may be safely thick here and perilously thin there.
Not to mention the winds, especially strong easterlies, that can cause water beneath ice to slosh and swell and heave, splitting "healed" cracks, slopping water and slush up into the openings. When it blows strong and long enough, the wind also opens cracks that may widen until they may be a quarter-mile, a half-mile, or more apart. Which is just what happened Sunday.
Time and again, rescue agencies from local fire departments and fisheries agencies to the Coast Guard warn about the fickle nature of ice conditions - warnings dutifully repeated in this column. Local ice guides time and again caution the same, and cancel trips when weather or conditions may be dicey. Bad judgment is bad for business. So is taking needless risks.
But apparently some ice adventurers are blind or deaf when it comes to warnings or good advice.
Yes, ice fishing can be safe. It is an enjoyable pastime for thousands of individuals across the northern United States. But western Lake Erie is no farm pond on the back 40.
Commercial shipping, often aided and abetted by the Coast Guard, frequently breaks winter-shipping channels from Toledo to Detroit, or from Toledo or Detroit to points east. Too, the lake’s central basin may remain open long after ice covers the small, shallow western basin. And an ice covering is a far different creature than a sheet of "safe" ice.
Pat Chrysler, one of the veteran guides of South Bass, had to tell his party of clients, from Chicago, to sit back and sip coffee yesterday - in a B&B on the island, not in their shanties. Even though he had 14 inches of ice under his shanties, Chrsyler declined to take out customers because of the strong winds and under-ice currents.
Needless to say, he was less than happy about the thoughtless publicity given the ice-trailblazing, followed by the attendant fallout of the Sunday strandings
Reflecting on his decades of experience, he noted the "North-South Crack" develops every year because of the winds and shifting ice. "That crack has been opening since the beginning of time when there’s an east wind," he asserted.
The crack usually begins on the tip of Catawba, usually between Moore’s Point and the ferry dock, the guide said. It heads west-northwest toward Green Island, follows around the west end of Rattlesnake Island and its "rattles," then travels across West Reef toward East Sister Island, North Harbour Island, Colchester Reef and the Canadian mainland.
"Overall, it [the open-lake ice] is just not ready yet," Chrysler said. "The ice outside the islands has been historically nomadic, no mater how much ice[thickness] you have."
John Hageman, another Put-in-Bay guide, added: "I knew that Catawba [South Passage] was going to be a problem with that east wind roaring." Such a wind, he explained, raises the water-level at the west end of the lake just like it does in the summer, and that causes the ice to flex and heave and crack.
Hageman wasn’t fishing yesterday, either - too much wind, too sloppy.
One of the best investments Lake Erie ice fishermen can make is to hire a guide, whether on South Bass Island, where ice tends to lock in most winters, or along the mainland if and when the ice is ready. Call a guide, find out. The Ohio Division of Wildlife can provide a list to those calling its Lake Erie Station at Sandusky, 419-625-8062.
No walleye or limit of walleyes is worth the price that may have to be paid because of foolhardy stunts and taking unnecessary risks. And in the long run it tarnishes the images of ice fishermen and hurts the ice-fishing trade.
With that kind of news, Chrysler adds, "I might as well be running tugboats."
DATEBOOK
Tonight - Public trapshoot, 6 to 10, Dundee Sportsmen’s Club, 2300 Plank Rd., Dundee, Mich., repeats Thursday 9 a.m. to noon and Sunday noon to 6 p.m.; also, Saturday, euchre, 7:30 p.m.; also, Saturday, junior division fish fry, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.; call the club 734-529-3581.
Tonight - General meeting, volunteers-in-parks, at 7, Wildwood Preserve Metropark, Ward Pavilion; also, tomorrow, information meeting for volunteer trail patrol, 6:30 p.m., Wildwood Ward Pavilion; also, Saturday, adventure touring and hiking, Swan Creek Preserve Metropark, hike or ski at 1 p.m., program at 2:15 p.m. on Central America at 2:15 p.m. with Hostelling International-Toledo Area.
Tomorrow - Public trapshoot, 6 p.m., Elmore Conservation Club, Portage River Road South, just west of State Rt. 590; call Richard Gremling, 419-729-9518.
E-mail Steve Pollick at spollick@theblade.com.
Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer
» E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com
» Read more Steve Pollick columns at www.toledoblade.com/pollick
Article Features »
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Good advice when ice fishing: Never go with the floe
News item Friday: "South Bass islanders blaze trail to mainland."
News item yesterday: "14 people rescued from Lake Erie ice."
What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, really. It is perfectly logical that unqualified publicity in the first story would create the mindset and circumstances that lead to the second.
But in both cases, a lack of common sense is missing.
A widely circulated news feature, a wire copy of which even was run in this newspaper Saturday, celebrated the pioneering nature of the snowmobile-riding islanders. But it never questioned the prudence of their decision to cross one of the most dangerous stretches of water, or ice, on the Great Lakes - the "Slop Chute" that separates Catawba Island peninsula on the mainland and South Bass Island.
The publicity attending such stunts in turn lends them legitimacy. Then the unknowing and the inexperienced can come from afar to land in the lap of trouble.
Summertime boaters on western Lake Erie, if they have any experience at all, know how many and varied currents squeeze through the South Passage, as the Slop Chute is more formally known. The Passage usually is choppy, with waves and wind and wakes coming from all directions. It calls for alert piloting.
But apparently it is rocket science to some folks to understand that the same tricky currents snake beneath the ice, unseen in winter, dangerously eroding ice that may be safely thick here and perilously thin there.
Not to mention the winds, especially strong easterlies, that can cause water beneath ice to slosh and swell and heave, splitting "healed" cracks, slopping water and slush up into the openings. When it blows strong and long enough, the wind also opens cracks that may widen until they may be a quarter-mile, a half-mile, or more apart. Which is just what happened Sunday.
Time and again, rescue agencies from local fire departments and fisheries agencies to the Coast Guard warn about the fickle nature of ice conditions - warnings dutifully repeated in this column. Local ice guides time and again caution the same, and cancel trips when weather or conditions may be dicey. Bad judgment is bad for business. So is taking needless risks.
But apparently some ice adventurers are blind or deaf when it comes to warnings or good advice.
Yes, ice fishing can be safe. It is an enjoyable pastime for thousands of individuals across the northern United States. But western Lake Erie is no farm pond on the back 40.
Commercial shipping, often aided and abetted by the Coast Guard, frequently breaks winter-shipping channels from Toledo to Detroit, or from Toledo or Detroit to points east. Too, the lake’s central basin may remain open long after ice covers the small, shallow western basin. And an ice covering is a far different creature than a sheet of "safe" ice.
Pat Chrysler, one of the veteran guides of South Bass, had to tell his party of clients, from Chicago, to sit back and sip coffee yesterday - in a B&B on the island, not in their shanties. Even though he had 14 inches of ice under his shanties, Chrsyler declined to take out customers because of the strong winds and under-ice currents.
Needless to say, he was less than happy about the thoughtless publicity given the ice-trailblazing, followed by the attendant fallout of the Sunday strandings
Reflecting on his decades of experience, he noted the "North-South Crack" develops every year because of the winds and shifting ice. "That crack has been opening since the beginning of time when there’s an east wind," he asserted.
The crack usually begins on the tip of Catawba, usually between Moore’s Point and the ferry dock, the guide said. It heads west-northwest toward Green Island, follows around the west end of Rattlesnake Island and its "rattles," then travels across West Reef toward East Sister Island, North Harbour Island, Colchester Reef and the Canadian mainland.
"Overall, it [the open-lake ice] is just not ready yet," Chrysler said. "The ice outside the islands has been historically nomadic, no mater how much ice[thickness] you have."
John Hageman, another Put-in-Bay guide, added: "I knew that Catawba [South Passage] was going to be a problem with that east wind roaring." Such a wind, he explained, raises the water-level at the west end of the lake just like it does in the summer, and that causes the ice to flex and heave and crack.
Hageman wasn’t fishing yesterday, either - too much wind, too sloppy.
One of the best investments Lake Erie ice fishermen can make is to hire a guide, whether on South Bass Island, where ice tends to lock in most winters, or along the mainland if and when the ice is ready. Call a guide, find out. The Ohio Division of Wildlife can provide a list to those calling its Lake Erie Station at Sandusky, 419-625-8062.
No walleye or limit of walleyes is worth the price that may have to be paid because of foolhardy stunts and taking unnecessary risks. And in the long run it tarnishes the images of ice fishermen and hurts the ice-fishing trade.
With that kind of news, Chrysler adds, "I might as well be running tugboats."
DATEBOOK
Tonight - Public trapshoot, 6 to 10, Dundee Sportsmen’s Club, 2300 Plank Rd., Dundee, Mich., repeats Thursday 9 a.m. to noon and Sunday noon to 6 p.m.; also, Saturday, euchre, 7:30 p.m.; also, Saturday, junior division fish fry, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.; call the club 734-529-3581.
Tonight - General meeting, volunteers-in-parks, at 7, Wildwood Preserve Metropark, Ward Pavilion; also, tomorrow, information meeting for volunteer trail patrol, 6:30 p.m., Wildwood Ward Pavilion; also, Saturday, adventure touring and hiking, Swan Creek Preserve Metropark, hike or ski at 1 p.m., program at 2:15 p.m. on Central America at 2:15 p.m. with Hostelling International-Toledo Area.
Tomorrow - Public trapshoot, 6 p.m., Elmore Conservation Club, Portage River Road South, just west of State Rt. 590; call Richard Gremling, 419-729-9518.
E-mail Steve Pollick at spollick@theblade.com.
Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer
» E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com
» Read more Steve Pollick columns at www.toledoblade.com/pollick
Article Features »
Printer-friendly version
Forum on this topic Email to a friend
View the Columnists index
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040127/COLUMNIST22/101270120