Mo ice fishing

Ice safety guidelines

From Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife -- General ice thickness guidelines - For new, clear ice only:

2 inches or less - Stay off;

4 inches -- May allow ice fishing or other activities on foot;

5 inches -- Often allows for snowmobile or ATV travel;

8-12 inches of good ice will support most cars or small pickups;

12-15 inches will likely hold a medium sized truck.

Remember that these thicknesses are merely guidelines for new, clear, solid ice. Many factors other than thickness can cause ice to be unsafe.

What if someone else falls in?

If someone else falls through and you are the only one around to help? First, call 911 for help. There is a good chance someone near you may be carrying a cell phone.

• Resist the urge to run up to the edge of the hole. This would most likely result in two victims in the water. Also, do not risk your life to attempt to save a pet or other animal.

Preach, reach, throw, row, go:

• Preach - Shout to the victim to encourage them to fight to survive and reassure them that help is on the way.

• Reach - If you can safely reach the victim from shore, extend an object such as a rope, ladder, or jumper cables to the victim. If the person starts to pull you in, release your grip on the object and start over.

• Throw - Toss one end of a rope or something that will float to the victim. Have them tie the rope around themselves before they are too weakened by the cold to grasp it.

• Row - Find a light boat to push across the ice ahead of you. Push it to the edge of the hole, get into the boat and pull the victim in over the bow. It’s not a bad idea to attach some rope to the boat, so others can help pull you and the victim to safety.

• Go - A non-professional should not go out on the ice to perform a rescue unless all other basic rescue techniques have been ruled out.

If the situation is too dangerous for you to perform the rescue, call 911 for help, keep reassuring the victim that help is on the way, and urge them to fight to survive. Heroics by well-meaning but untrained rescuers sometimes result in two deaths.

New ice is usually stronger than old ice. Four inches of clear, newly-formed ice may support one person on foot, while a foot or more of old, partially-thawed ice may not.

Ice seldom freezes uniformly. It may be a foot thick in one location and only an inch or two just a few feet away.

Ice formed over flowing water and currents is often dangerous. This is especially true near streams, bridges, and culverts. In addition, the ice on outside river bends is usually weaker due to the undermining effects of the faster current.

The insulating effect of snow slows down the freezing process. The extra weight also reduces how much weight the ice sheet can support. Also, ice near shore can be weaker than ice that is farther out.

Booming and cracking ice isn’t necessarily dangerous. It only means that the ice is expanding and contracting as the temperature changes.

Schools of fish or flocks of waterfowl can also adversely affect the relative safety of ice. The movement of fish can bring warm water up from the bottom of the lake. In the past, this has opened holes in the ice causing snowmobiles and cars to break through.

If your car or truck plunges through the ice, the best time to escape is before it sinks, not after. It will stay afloat a few seconds to several minutes depending on the air tightness of the vehicle.

• While the car is still afloat, the best escape hatches are the side windows since the doors may be held shut by the water pressure. If the windows are blocked, try to push the windshield or rear window out with your feet or shoulder.

• A vehicle with its engine in the front will sink at a steep angle and may land on its roof if the water is 15 feet or deeper. As the car starts its final plunge to the bottom, water rapidly displaces the remaining air. An air bubble can stay in a submerged vehicle, but it is unlikely that it would remain by the time the car hits the bottom.

• When the car is completely filled, the doors may be a little easier to open unless they are blocked by mud and silt. Remember, too, chances are that the car will be upside-down at this point! Add darkness and near freezing water, and your chances of escape have greatly diminished. This underscores the necessity of getting out of the car before it starts to sink!

The following guidelines can help you make wise choices:

• Check for known thin ice areas with a local resort or bait shop.

• Test the thickness yourself using an ice chisel or ice auger.

• Refrain from driving on ice whenever possible.

• If you must drive a vehicle, be prepared to leave it in a hurry--keep windows down, unbuckle your seat belt and have a simple emergency plan of action you have discussed with your passengers.

• Stay away from alcoholic beverages.

• Even "just a couple of beers" are enough to cause a careless error in judgment that could cost you your life. And contrary to common belief, alcohol actually makes you colder rather than warming you up.

• Don't "overdrive" your snowmobile's headlight.

• At even 30 miles per hour, it can take a much longer distance to stop on ice than your headlight shines. Many fatal snowmobile through-the-ice accidents occur because the machine was traveling too fast for the operator to stop when the headlamp illuminated the hole in the ice.

• Wear a life vest under your winter gear.

• Or wear one of the new flotation snowmobile suits. And it's a good idea to carry a pair of ice picks that may be home made or purchased from most well stocked sporting goods stores that cater to winter anglers. It's amazing how difficult it can be to pull yourself back onto the surface of unbroken but wet and slippery ice while wearing a snowmobile suit weighted down with 60 pounds of water. The ice picks really help pulling yourself back onto solid ice. Caution: Do not wear a flotation device when traveling across the ice in an enclosed vehicle!

Ice fishing tips

Take a drive through any part of Maine during the winter, and it becomes obvious – ice fishers seem to be set up on nearly every available lake or pond.

Even in this tough economy ice-fishing-gear sales remain steady, and bait dealers continue to maintain their businesses – both points indicate a sizable number of hard water anglers.

Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (DIF&W) stocks over 20,000 fish per year in an effort to give winter anglers a chance at enjoying a nice trout dinner or two.

An angler with the proper gear, the right technique, and plenty of persistence, has an excellent chance at taking a few pan-sized brookies home to their own kitchen this winter – and a good possibility of hooking into a trophy for the wall.

Nowadays, searching for brook trout begins at home on the computer, an easy way to find some of the better places to catch a winter brookie.

Open Maine’s DIF&W website (mefishwildlife.com) and click on “fishing,” located on the left side of the first page. Then click on “reports” and then “stocking list,” which takes searching anglers to a complete report of current stocking activity. At the bottom of that page anglers can also find reports of past stocking efforts.

Once anglers locate a specific lake or pond to be fished, the next step in this search would be to find the best brook-trout fishing areas on that particular body of water. Some lakes and ponds cover huge acreage, so start narrowing down the vast amount of choices by looking for a few key features that attract brook trout.

Most anglers already know that brook trout hunt for food in shallow water during the winter freeze, but many ice fishers miss the point by limiting their fishing activity too close to the shoreline.

Occasionally a brook trout ventures to within a few feet of the shoreline to chase baitfish, but this doesn’t mean that anglers should start boring every hole right up against the shoreline. Most of the time, brook trout hang out in a transition zone somewhere between the shallow water and deeper water.

A proper set up, where anglers can legally use five traps, would be to start out with the first trap set in about two feet of water. From there, form the rest of the traps in a line toward progressively deeper water. Then when a trap gets hit, anglers can pull the other traps and concentrate their efforts at the location and depth that caused the hit.

Although the terminal gear used to catch brook trout through the ice doesn’t have to be much more than a baited hook at the end of the line, setting it all up properly can make the difference between simply watching inactive traps, or hauling in fish.

Brook trout, above all other fish, seem to be what anglers refer to as “leader shy.” A rig with a heavy leader, too big of a hook, or lots of extraneous hardware makes these finicky trout avoid chomping onto the bait.

A good set-up would be a loop connection at the end of a heavy line made specifically for ice fishing, connected to a leader of no more than six-pound-test line. The leader should be at least six to eight feet long and tied to the main line with a loop knot, so changing out warn leaders can be accomplished in a hurry.

Next, make sure to use a hook no larger than a number six, tied directly to the leader. Forget about swivels, or other means of fastening the leader to the hook – leader-shy brookies like it simple.

Hook the baitfish lightly though the top of the body, near the dorsal fin, and attach a small sinker a few inches, to one foot, ahead of that to keep the offering below the ice. Drop it down to anywhere between two- and twenty-feet and set the trap. The same set-up can be used successfully with a worm.

When the trout takes the bait and the flag goes off, let the fish run for a short distance and set the hook by pulling sharply on the line.

Smaller brookies may come right in, but larger fish require some tactical handling.

Time and experience on the ice happens to be the only way to teach excited anglers how fast to pull the fish in, but that happens to be the joy of fishing for brook trout through the ice – a constant and refreshing learning experience.

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Mo ice fishing