Ice shacks still safe as spring nears

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Ice shacks are, for the most part, wonderful displays of Yankee ingenuity. The often-ugly, always-quirky portable cabins provide shelter in the dead of winter. They offer us refuge from the wind, snow and rain. They give us a place to comfortably wait for finicky (or, perhaps, nonexistent) fish.

But twice a year, they’re nothing but trouble.

The first: On opening day, when you enlist some friends and convince them that dragging a bulky shack through two feet of drifted lake snow would be a fun way to spend a Saturday.

The second occurs shortly after you find yourself sitting at work … continually glancing nervously out the window … and wondering what three straight days of 50-degree temperatures and wind-blown rain has done to the formerly stable layer of ice on your favorite lake. And, of course, whether you’ll have to take a wet suit and a scuba tank with you when you rescue your shack from that lake.

As you know (recent weather anomalies notwithstanding), those warm-weather, shack-sinking days are approaching. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow.

But soon.

Earlier this week, I made a circuit of area lakes, looking for a shack that needed rescuing … a shack owner who needed a hand … and perhaps a long-lost fishing friend in need … preferably one I could needle in his time of despair.

You see, this year, my shack isn’t sinking. It’s not going to be any trouble at all. It’s on dry land … just where it’s been since the last time I nearly fell into icy Green Lake while rescuing it.

I never found any anglers in need during my morning foray. Far from it. This is what I did see:

At Field’s Pond: Nothing but ice. Shore to shore. Left to right. As far as the eye could see.

At Brewer Lake: More of the same. No open water. No signs of spring.

Well, no signs of spring, save the fact that a few shacks have been dragged ashore – including a gaudy lime-green and neon pinkish-orange beast that made me appreciate my own plain brown fishing retreat even more.

At Green Lake: The shore was filled with the shacks of people who obviously plan much more carefully than I.

A dozen or more are already ashore, where they can be easily retrieved (or, if the weather holds, where they can still serve as ice-fishing shelters for diehard anglers).

On the lake? No reason to worry. The shoreline moat that always develops – and that makes shack-removal efforts so troublesome – hasn’t arrived … yet.

The twittering of dozens of birds in a nearby tree signaled that the time is near … but something I saw on the lake signaled something entirely different.

Trucks. Several trucks. And they were parked hundreds of yards from shore, next to shacks that may … or may not … need rescuing in the future.

Spring is coming … honest … I hope.

Now that you’re thinking about ice, you may want to put your observational prowess (and luck) to the test by entering the Schoodic Lake Ice-Out Contest.

It’s being sponsored by the Three Rivers Community Alliance, and it’s quite simple.

Just predict when the main body of the lake will be navigable by boat (broken ice in the “bottom” of the lake is OK).

Tickets can be purchased for $1 at a number of businesses in Sebec, LaGrange, Milo and Brownville.

The minimum prize is guaranteed to be $100, but since it’s a 50-50 pay-out, the total could be significantly higher.

Good luck.

Though newspapers are a disposable medium, readers often prove to us that the words that appear in these pages are much more long-lasting than the newsprint itself.

That was the case on Sunday night, when I sat in on The Maine Outdoors, a weekly radio program hosted by V. Paul Reynolds and Wiggie Robinson that airs on WVOM (103.9 FM) in Bangor.

Bear-baiting, as you may have guessed, was a hot topic, and one that Reynolds, Robinson and I … along with one fired-up caller … had a lengthy conversation about.

Reynolds had planned to bring up the issue later in the program, but when the phone rang and the caller stated his opinion, we abandoned our schedule and waded into the issue.

The caller’s complaint: The column I wrote about Cecil Gray, the guide who has sounded off in favor of the referendum to change bear-hunting practices in Maine.

The opinion that many have expressed is that allowing Gray a forum to express his views was a bad decision.

In retrospect, I’d do the same thing again, for one simple reason.

We’re talking about the issue.

And any time we’re discussing the referendum … and not simply yelling back and forth at each other … I think we’re giving the issue the respect and thought that it deserves.

My position on the referendum is well documented: I support the DIF&W biologists who say baiting bear is an essential tool. Allowing Cecil Gray to speak his piece didn’t change that … nor did getting scolded on a radio program by someone whose beliefs are similar to my own.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.