03-29-2020, 11:33 AM
Part of the local culture -- ice fishing -- was impossible in southern Michigan in this non-winter.
Huffington Post:
ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. ― It’s pitch black at 6 a.m on the shortest day of the year. In the far end of the parking lot behind the St. Clair Shores Library, just north of Detroit, a small group of ice anglers congregates. They are the dedicated and the few, all champing at the bit to get a jump on what is already a late start to the season.
Under a still-rising half-moon, about 20 or so men in full-body coveralls, parkas and hats with huge earflaps trot home-fashioned rigs of equipment on wagons out into the marina docks; ice drills, scoops, spring-loaded tip-ups (akin to a bobber), 5-gallon buckets sloshing with live bait. Their breath forms white clouds in the frigid predawn air.
Fishing on Lake St. Clair is out of the question ― it isn’t frozen. But a brief cold snap over the past few days has finally produced a rime of ice in the canals leading into the lake ― enough to drill a hole and cast a line through, but not enough to stand on safely. This morning’s experienced diehards drill their holes and cast their lines from the docks. Later in the day, the temperature rises to the high 40s, where it stays until the new year.
For most of 72-year-old ice fisherman Tim Sacka’s life, the ice season began in late December and lasted well into March. These days, he says, it’s far less predictable.
“Back 30 years ago… the ice lasted in the canals until April 1,” he said. “And it seems like it’s getting later and later for the ice to form.” Last year, he says, the ice formed early but lasted only a few weeks.
The 2019-20 ice season here was “a disaster,” says bait shop owner Veronica Pinto. Pinto has owned and operated Lakeside Fishing bait shop in St. Clair Shores for 43 years. It’s been one disappointment after another, she says, as temperatures hovered well above freezing all season. Bait and tackle sales are way down. The Lake St. Clair Cold as Ice winter ice fishing festival and tournament was canceled. The previous year it was delayed a month due to the unpredictable ice.
“It’s been a terrible time to be trying to sell fishing tackle. Nothing is predictable,” she says. “We don’t have the seasons anymore like we used to.”
Pinto doesn’t think the lakeside economy here in St. Clair Shores can absorb another bad ice year.
Many anglers who might otherwise have fished on Lake St. Clair this winter are heading farther north in Michigan or to Canada’s Lake Simcoe in search of ice, Pinto says. That means lost revenue for bars, restaurants and hotels, an entire industry that relies on people who come each winter from near and far to drill holes in the frozen lake and sit in ice shanties.
Two percent of Michigan’s gross domestic product is dependent on tourism for outdoor recreation, with snow activities bringing in $73 million each year.
“We’re following three bad winters already,” Pinto says. “Our economy is based on having a season in the winter where you sell a product, and it just hasn’t happened.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-fishi...022ab3158f
Huffington Post:
ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. ― It’s pitch black at 6 a.m on the shortest day of the year. In the far end of the parking lot behind the St. Clair Shores Library, just north of Detroit, a small group of ice anglers congregates. They are the dedicated and the few, all champing at the bit to get a jump on what is already a late start to the season.
Under a still-rising half-moon, about 20 or so men in full-body coveralls, parkas and hats with huge earflaps trot home-fashioned rigs of equipment on wagons out into the marina docks; ice drills, scoops, spring-loaded tip-ups (akin to a bobber), 5-gallon buckets sloshing with live bait. Their breath forms white clouds in the frigid predawn air.
Fishing on Lake St. Clair is out of the question ― it isn’t frozen. But a brief cold snap over the past few days has finally produced a rime of ice in the canals leading into the lake ― enough to drill a hole and cast a line through, but not enough to stand on safely. This morning’s experienced diehards drill their holes and cast their lines from the docks. Later in the day, the temperature rises to the high 40s, where it stays until the new year.
For most of 72-year-old ice fisherman Tim Sacka’s life, the ice season began in late December and lasted well into March. These days, he says, it’s far less predictable.
“Back 30 years ago… the ice lasted in the canals until April 1,” he said. “And it seems like it’s getting later and later for the ice to form.” Last year, he says, the ice formed early but lasted only a few weeks.
The 2019-20 ice season here was “a disaster,” says bait shop owner Veronica Pinto. Pinto has owned and operated Lakeside Fishing bait shop in St. Clair Shores for 43 years. It’s been one disappointment after another, she says, as temperatures hovered well above freezing all season. Bait and tackle sales are way down. The Lake St. Clair Cold as Ice winter ice fishing festival and tournament was canceled. The previous year it was delayed a month due to the unpredictable ice.
“It’s been a terrible time to be trying to sell fishing tackle. Nothing is predictable,” she says. “We don’t have the seasons anymore like we used to.”
Pinto doesn’t think the lakeside economy here in St. Clair Shores can absorb another bad ice year.
Many anglers who might otherwise have fished on Lake St. Clair this winter are heading farther north in Michigan or to Canada’s Lake Simcoe in search of ice, Pinto says. That means lost revenue for bars, restaurants and hotels, an entire industry that relies on people who come each winter from near and far to drill holes in the frozen lake and sit in ice shanties.
Two percent of Michigan’s gross domestic product is dependent on tourism for outdoor recreation, with snow activities bringing in $73 million each year.
“We’re following three bad winters already,” Pinto says. “Our economy is based on having a season in the winter where you sell a product, and it just hasn’t happened.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-fishi...022ab3158f
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