Two men launching a boat into the frigid waters of Kempenfelt Bay on Sunday morning says all that needs to be said about this winter’s ice fishing season so far.
“If there is no ice, we have to do something,” said Eduard Prysyazhnyuk of Barrie, keeping the 17.75-foot, two outboard-motor vessel close to the Tiffin Boat Launch dock. “We have to find a solution.”
“There’s been not much ice fishing for the last couple of years,” said Oleg Zhechuk of Mississauga after parking the pickup truck that was towing their boat. “We are going to try to find some white fish.”
Prysyazhnyuk and Zhechuk, both originally from Ukraine, say they like ice fishing by hut or exposed to the elements, which mid-Sunday morning meant a little snow and a temperature of -5 Celsius.
“I think this will be our last boat trip in Lake Simcoe this year,” said Zhechuk.
But Chad Paiero, owner of Lucky’s Sons Ice Huts in Lefroy at the bottom of Killarney Beach Road, said ice conditions are changing, and for the better.
He said the ice started forming Saturday night near shore, a good sign.
“It’s like a bay, protected by the points,” Paiero said, describing the area. “When you go out further on the lake (or Cook’s Bay), the wind whips by, keeps the water always turning in waves, so it doesn’t freeze. But the land protects the inner part of the lake, and that’s what we call the shelf.
“Normally the ice will come and go two or three times before we get a good two or three weeks of cold that will keep it.”
For the Barrie area, Environment and Climate Change Canada is predicting daytime/nightime temperatures of -7C to -15C today, -11C to -12C tomorrow, -9C to -14C Tuesday, -11C to -14C Wednesday, -9C to -14C Thursday and -5C to -12C Friday. Snow flurries are forecast Monday to Thursday.
Donny Crowder, owner of Hot Box Huts Ice Fishing at Innisfil’s 2nd Line, said it’s not so much the temperature but the wind he watches.
“Ice won’t form when the water’s moving,” he explained. “Honestly all we need is calm for an hour or two and it will freeze over and once it freezes over and locks up, that cold will just keep building ice and we can build as much as an inch or two a day.
“I never look much further ahead than two weeks,” Crowder said. “The temperatures are there, that’s a good thing, but we will also need those temperatures with no wind.”
Paiero said last year was the first year Lucky’s Sons didn’t make it out on the ice, after two of three winters of only having about three weeks on the ice.
“Now this is looking good for us. Two weeks of freezing is needed from the initial skim of ice,” he said. “One week you can probably walk on it, you’ll get two or three inches, but we look for six to eight inches and we also look for cold weather coming.
“I won’t put the huts on if I see there’s a week of warm weather coming.”
Paiero also said cold weather can make up to an inch of ice a night,
“As long as it doesn’t change. You know what the weather patterns are like,” he said. “You can wake up tomorrow…and there could be a week of plus (temperature) weather.
“As long as that weather pattern doesn’t change, then we’ll be out there within two weeks.”
A weather source near Oro-Medonte Township’s 7th Line said Sunday afternoon there was no ice on Lake Simcoe so far, but that it could happen in the coming days, with a solid week of normal January temperatures forecast.
