Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How many inches do you have?

I think you're right. I believe Dr. Willis said as much.

Well, turned out perfect. The leak didn't spread much, and the ice is the definition of BLACK. Skating was great! Only a few bruises and friends looking in amazement at rocks on the bottom a few feet down. The stress cracks look pretty cool.

I wish the pond had a little more greenery to assure a bit of DO. I am hoping the small creek running at about 1 gal a minute is enough to bring in reasonable DO. My pond does not have very many fish in it though, and hardly any organics on the bottom. Still a baby.

Up to 12 inches. Had a guy drive his pickup truck on the lake that a friend lives on. Nobody around the lake can remember seeing a vehicle on the lake before. It's been an old fashioned winter this year!

I don't care if the ice is 20" thick. No dang way I am putting my vehicle on the ice! Not unless I wanted rid of it. I have a knack for finding thin spots. I would probably park it where there was a warm spring unknowingly.

I managed to break through the ice plowing my pond off yesterday, it sped my heart rate up a it picturing my 4-wheeler (and myself) embedded into the ice until late spring! I managed to get it out since the sheet of ice that broke only angled down to the shoreline. It was only a few inches thick where there was snow piled on the ice. I pushed it over too far and broke it. Whoops.

Out in the middle, I cannot get my 8" drill bit to get to water. I suspect after today, even thicker. It never got above 5F.

Wow watched our 8 foot around open hole shrink down to 8 inches in 12 hours. Its -16C today with the wind is -35C and were expected 20cm of snow or 8"s of snow with this wind and cold.

Crazy cold winter burned twice the wood in the shop. Colds been here since November.

Chh Chhh Chheers DDDDon.

21"

Meanwhile Alaska is in the upper 40's to low 50's for highs. A ridge over Alaska and the west coast is creating warmer than normal temps (and a historic drought), and a trough over the rest of the country is doing the opposite.

If the ridge moved east or the jet stream shifted we could go the other extreme.



Please note this post is not about GWing and please don't make it so. It's just meteorology 101 and I thought some of you might find it of interest. I'd hate to see Dwight's thread deleted.

Dwight have you done any measurements to see a rough correlation on the speed the ice thickness increases vs. present ice thickness and air temps? Of course snow cover plays a part too.

E.g., I noted a few years ago in my big pond, that single digits for 24 hours added an inch of ice, once the ice was already formed an inch or two. An inch or two of snow didn't seem to slow it down. Not sure about subzero temps as this is the first year we've actually had them consistently for some time!

All I know is ice is weird in my pond. Not much snow on it, and it still blew a hole and leaked water after several days of not getting above 10. The areas I have been plowing are all thick, but the snowy areas (maybe 4") are questionable.

Cecil, I'd be interested to measure the ice on Sunday evening, then again Wed morning. High Monday is supposed to be +5, high on Tuesday is supposed to be -2 with a low of -16.

Snow drastically reduces ice growth. It insulates the ice from the air and the water from under will take the ice away. Something you learn with spring ice in the north is to say away from the points that have snow drifts on them. Yes the water is shallow there but its still cold.

If the snow is on the ice in a large mass it will insulate the ice and the water below will melt the ice.

Best ice we had up north was 40"s and my knuckles were on the ice when drilling ice fishing holes. Drilled 14 holes that day and the young guy in the group. Uggggg.

Don.

My neighbor say she heard on TV or something it's another "Polar Vortex" but this one may be a little colder. How is that possible. LOL

Yep, they said on the news last night that this batch of cold air coming will be colder than the last batch. Possibly the coldest of the season.

Lake effect to the North, cutting across South Bend. Cecil, I wouldn't be suprised if you got some of it. Supposed to snow on and off thru Tuesday.

Bring it on! I remember once when I was first married we lived in Avilla, Indiana, which isn't that far from the Allen County line. For some reason lake effect kicked in all the way over there and gave us 10 inches! That doesn't happen very often.

Edit: It's here. Visibility down to 1/10th mile with Sea Gulls in between with the sun out!

Just my luck! Igot out of the portable heater business last year.

I was considering getting into the Stock Market back in 2008. Then it crashed.

Just measured in several different spots..

12"-13" on the clear ice I have for skating..
10" under snow just outside clear area..
16" plus just off dock where snow melt was heavy..
4" where diffuser hole was open 6 days ago, would probably be thicker except it was snow covered..

1st day of no snow in a couple weeks.

The sun even poked out for a while and melted some!

It'll be over soon enough, but February is usually our worst month!

No January thaw as usual, but I think the clock is off a month or so.

Too much wind for me to drill a hole. Will tomorrow if I get a sec. I am betting 24"s minimum.

Cheers Don.

23 inches today

Just drilled a few holes yesterday and we have 23"s as well. All good solid ice froze top down.

The trout pond has only 10 1/2 inches. May be so thin due to so much on and off heavy snow cover and the duffuser in this small 55 by 88 pond?

I was very concerned recently as the diffuser hole got quite small even pumping in 4 cfm's of air. No doubt due to the subzero temps and the fact that the diffuser was only set in a couple feet of water. In a normal year that is all that is needed...

I was able to chop a hole 10 by 12 feet with a spud and move the diffuser out to about 5 feet of water on the deep edge of that hole, which should eventually make the hole even larger.

I then cut a hole with the auger some distance from the diffuser and dropped a hookless jig into it and immediately had trout fighting over it. I had one trout try and come up in the hole after the jig. I can't imagine fish being this active if their were low D.O. Issues. So I'm thinking I wasn't too late expanding the opening and moving the diffuser to deeper water.

The total sale value of these brook trout when they are 4 to 6 pounds in the fall is somewhere between 5 to 10 grand. You can see why I don't want to lose them. And I've already been feeding them for a year and been running the well 7 months of the year for a year.

Some pictures:

The ice opening I made looking toward shore showing the boil from the diffuser.



The ice opening and boil looking out from shore:




Some of the ice I chopped out with a spud and pulled out with a large landing net to make the hole larger. There is smaller pile on the other side of the hole not shown outside of the picture.

You guys got my curiosity up and I had to check my pond. Only 7", I was surprised it wasn't more. Only 5" looked like black stuff you guys say is good and solid.

Cecil, are you feeding the trout once in a while at the opening?

I haven't fed them in at least 4 or 5 weeks. Even though I have had them go the entire winter without feeding them, I'm going to shut off the compressor this afternoon for a short period and see if I can entice them to the hole with some hydrated pellets.

Edit: They were spooky but they couldn't get enough. Had to be careful not to overfeed them in the cold water.

Yesterday's rain and warmer temps put a hurtin' on our ice. The edges are soft, but still accessible, and the junky, white ice now extends down for approx. 3-4"....three to four inches of black ice under that. The spud hits water a heck of a lot faster now than it did just three days ago.