Benefits, drawbacks with lack of Lake Erie ice

(WTVG)
Published: Jan. 22, 2020 at 5:46 PM EST
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It seemed for a while that Old Man Winter was sleeping on the job in the Midwest, with mild and sometimes record highs for the first half of the season.

Now, even with this week's freeze, less than 2 percent of Lake Erie is covered in ice at a time when it should average closer to 50 percent.

Needless to say, with such thin ice this year, some winter activities such as ice fishing are non-starters. In Port Clinton, the most ice we saw wasn't in the lake, but a bit further into the mouth of the Portage River and marshland further east.

Fisherman's Wharf normally offers ice fishing excursions, but 2020's been a bust so far.

"If we get ice fishing in our tourist town here, it's like a little modern-day gold rush," says Fisherman's Wharf manager Marc Wolfe. "You don't count on the money in the winter because it's all based on ice. We do close in the winter for the season, but some of us that work here would normally offer guided ice fishing if safe conditions did show up."

Walleye fishing has been one upside to the more open waters in a few spots this year, along with shipping lanes being largely unaffected. For the Wharf in the off-season, however, consistently colder temperatures would lead to better business.

"In 2014-2015, we had the safest ice we've seen in decades," Wolfe said. "Hotels were full, restaurants were full, everything was full due to the ice, but we can't bank on that year in and year out."

It's unlikely that we'll have thick enough lake ice for safety's sake this year, so it's important to exercise caution -- even if we do get another deep freeze in February, during what should be the peak extent of ice coverage.

Wolfe echoes a sentiment familiar to those along the lakeshore: "The stance is always 'No ice is safe ice' due to currents and stuff like that. It's just a personal judgment call, but a lot of people unfortunately can be the first one to go out and make the wrong judgment."