Ice Fishing may happen

[West Basin]

January forecast, if it holds up, should produce more than enough consistent cold for the nearshore Western Basin shoreline areas and the Islands to form ice for ice fishing. I was up at Port Clinton on Christmas eve, and Sandusky Bay / west harbor were all open water. Buddy was up yesterday / this morning and said west harbor and Sandusky Bay now had ice. We all know (or should) that "safe" ice conditions depend on a lot of factors. But we do have a long consistent cold spell that is here, and that's the factor that all the others depend on. The open water ("soft water") fisher folks will wait until spring. Those of us who enjoy the "hard water" fishing (ice fishing) should be getting excited with the current forecast.

[DW72]

Sounds exciting. Thanks Dave and please keep us posted🙂

[West Basin]

Ice Update:

Temperature forecast is real good, but the wind forecast is real bad. High winds most days this coming week. Web cams show a lot of ice, but a lot of it is frozen broken up ice. Even if there is thick ice formation through this coming week, enough for ice fishing, trying to travel through jumbled up chunks of ice is difficult at best, as well as dangerous. The winds will keep currents moving and changing as well as stressing the ice. I'm not anywhere near an ice expert, but it looks like getting any good ice conditions right now is not likely. Maybe some spots off South Bass Island if the locals can find / make travel lanes out to close fishing areas. But until the winds die off for several days or longer, I wouldn't think anyone with any sense will be out.
:-(

[Ole fisherman]

That is the problem, those that do go out without any common sense, messes it up for those that use their heads !!

[30th Arty]

That is the problem, those that do go out without any common sense, messes it up for those that use their heads !!

Drove through East Harbor on Saturday. There were about three dozen fishing shanties on the ice.