Temperatures may be cold, but ice fishing is free

An ice fishing tip-up went through about 10 inches of ice Saturday as a group camped out with snowmobiles and sleds at Saturday’s ice fishing derby on Messalonskee Lake at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts in Sidney. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

SIDNEY — More than 500 people have signed up for ice fishing derby Saturday at Messalonskee Lake at Snow Pond Center for the Artssaid organizer Alyssa Quintal.

The event is apart of Maine’s Free Fishing Weekend, when participants take to lakes, ponds and rivers for a series of ice fishing derbies across the state.

Although officials and participants have previously expressed concerns about this year’s unseasonably warm winter creating thinning and slippery ice across the state, cooler temperatures have returned in time for most of the derbies to go ahead as planned.

“We did an ice fishing derby last year, and it was very small, only a few dozen people,” Quintal said. “But we had a lot of interest from the public, and it kind of grew from there. We had a lot of outreach from the community.”

Cameron Dufour, one of about a dozen volunteers on hand for Saturday morning’s event, said he felt compelled to help the event grow after he and his family attended it last year.

“I think the biggest part of ice fishing is that literally everyone hangs out on the ice,” he said. “The biggest drive for me is just friends and family. Fishing and telling stories and stuff.”

A spectator checks the biggest catches during Saturday’s ice fishing derby on Messalonskee Lake at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts in Sidney. Organizers said the largest fish weighed 19.75 pounds. Photo by Dylan Tusinski

Around 11 a.m., Dufour said the biggest fish caught was a pike weighing 19.75 pounds. The fish was caught Robert Nasonremained victorious when the derby ended at 3:30 pm

Quintal said he and other organizers are worried that conditions will be similar to last year, when warm weather melted the ice prematurely. Some experts have described it as “sketchy at best” and one of the toughest ice fishing seasons in recent memory.

“The weather was warmer, and it wasn’t until the week of the derby that we had it that the temperature started to cool down,” Quintal said. “With the rain and everything, it affects all the surrounding bodies of water, not just ours.”

Just hours before the derby began, Quintal said a massive ice ridge opened near the center of the lake, caused in large part by recent weather patterns and the opening of dams upstream near Oakland that interfered with the fixed lake of ice.

The Messalonskee derby is still safe, he stressed, because it’s about a mile away on 9-12 inches of ice that is regularly checked for safety.

“A ridge starts to form about a mile south of here, and it stretches from one shore to the next,” Quintal said. “Some of those segments are as much as 20 feet wide. … Last Sunday the ridge started to form, and then everything loosened up yesterday because it went from two inches to 20 feet.”

A snowmobiler passes a row of ice fishing camps Saturday during an ice fishing derby on Messalonskee Lake at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts in Sidney. Organizers said more than 500 people registered for the event. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

While temperatures are expected to stay below freezing for most of the weekend, participants should still check the thickness of the ice before walking, skating or driving on it, according to Mark Latti, communications director for at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.

“You can’t tell how good the ice is just by looking at it, so you have to drill a hole or chop a hole in it to see,” he said. “Generally, this time of year in Maine, if you look you can find safe ice where you can fish or snowmobile or skate, but that’s not necessarily all ice.”

Both Quintal and Latti said 4 inches of ice is safe to walk on, 6 inches is safe for snowmobiling, and 12 inches is needed for larger vehicles.

Although fishing spots in Sidney and beyond are open for business, Latti described ice conditions elsewhere in the state as “very fresh.”

“Even on the same lake, we can have really good ice, over 10 inches, and then we get into some places where we’re under 4 inches, maybe with open water in some places,” said he. “Conditions vary, and we urge everyone to check the ice before going out.”

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