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It's that time of the year!


Dan Hiebert

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I wouldn't try that on our ice right now. It's been so mild lately that the ice is pretty soft, and disappearing fast. Our big sturgeon spearing season kicks this weekend on Lake Winnebago (largest inland lake in Wisconsin), and other upstream lakes on the Fox River chain. There is much concern about the ice conditions with everyone that will be out there. 

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Back home in Minnesoota, Sven, and Oly went ice fishing. They got out to the middle of the ice and started drilling a hole. Suddenly they heard a big booming voice that said, "There's no fish under the ice"! So they packed up their stuff and moved to a different spot and again started drilling a hole. Again they heard that same big booming voice, "There's no fish under the ice"! They looked at each other and scratched their head and Sven said, "Lord is dat you"? The big booming voice answered, "No, I'm the skating rink Manager"!!

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1o or 12 years ago we would have been out on Onieda lake racing our cars on 14 to 20 inches of ice and would continue till the 1st or 2nd weekend in March.  I went by the park wherever accessed the lake and it is barely skimmed over.  Not even enough for skating or fishing.  

 

As youngsters we would skate on swamps and  interconnected creeks.  Could skate for miles and never be in some other skaters tracks.  Never saw much to recommend rink skating (or fishing).

Edited by greg g
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Big ol' Chrysler like that was probably rode hard and put up wet working in the tater fields for years before that photo was taken.  Sagged the springs a bit.  That or the trunk is full of beer, coffee brandy, and firewood.

 

I get a kick out of the family sedan being used for mundane stuff like ice fishing.  Our ol' Dodge was a ranch car for a while in southern New Mexico, it went dove or quail hunting at least once...as evidenced by the 20 gauge shotgun hole in the rocker below one of the rear doors.  Someone had an AD either taking the shotgun out, or putting it back, in the back seat.  How do I know it was a 20 gauge?  When I was working the hole back closed before I put new rocker trim on, the wad fell out of the hole, along with some #7 shot.  I didn't know what had created that hole before that...

 

We have less than the normal amount of snow for this time of year up here, but we've got plenty of ice.  8 to 12 inches on the lakes in The County.  We're not the brightest bulbs, tho.  A few years ago we did our ice fishing trip to a lake that had a foot of water on the ice.  All it did was slow the sleds down and make everyone grumpy. 

 

"Mundane" is a poor choice of word, I mean using a car for what we normally associate with trucks or off-road vehicles...

Edited by Dan Hiebert
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  • 2 weeks later...

we cancelled our annual ice harvest day after rescheduling twice.  open water at the edges (tough to drive onto the ice to load it), and not very thick for blocks - about 8 inches.  last year, we had 18" blocks that weighed around 300 lbs each.

 

from last year....

 

P2126851.jpg

 

P2126862.jpg

 

P2126863.jpg

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Very cool you tried though.

I'm still skeptical about this year .... it has been unusually warm down south in TX .... 84 degrees today, just 2 days ago it was 25 degree when we woke up and went up to 35 in the afternoon. ..... Just not a normal weather pattern this year anywhere.

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The Amish communities do most of the ice harvesting in these parts.  They don't seem to have any qualms getting out when the ice is thinner than usual.  But their equipment is horses, sleds, and hand saws.  They have some pretty sturdy horses, but still nowhere near as heavy as trucks (duh).  They use the horses to gauge the ice, if the horse steps out and goes "nope", they'll leave that patch alone.  We're at -4 here right now, but it's supposed to get into the 40's next week for a couple days - right in the middle of our annual ice fishing trip. 

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