Ice reports
 

Interesting. I too look to have at least 6" and preferably 8" of black ice under me before I go marching across the lake to my place. May be a stretch to see that by the weekend.

There's a reason for the season!
 

Hi Folks!

'Just back from a little ICW time in Boca Raton. They can have it!

There is nothing better than a X-country ski on the Lake! We just did a little jog up Red Hill....Awsome!

As they say... It's the snow that brings 'Em here but it's the slush that Keeps 'em here!

Misty Blue.

Boca raton
 

I now live year round in Key Colony Beach and I have to agree with you. We have kept my childhood home on Pleasant st. in Meredith Bay and I would be heart broken to see the Derby delayed let alone cancelled. I have been checking in on the weather forecast and it looks very promising so I am ecstatic about that. The Wahoo fishing is hot, but I am in dire need of some clean cold air from the Lakes Region, chatting with the many people who visit us, and a dozen or more flags. Winnipesaukee is my therapy and without question I would take that ski around the lake over the offshore trolling 99 times out of 10o; if only my business would allow me more time!

Aquatherm
 

Does someone have an ice bubbler out in the broads off the Broadview condos... I have been watching that hole of open water get larger everyday... now it is very apparent.

We could use another aerial shot, Bill!

Island Girl

More holes!
 

IG it's getting worse in other spots, too! The Weirs Cam is showing two large areas of open water which I did not notice previously! :( I'm beginning to lose faith that we will see a true ice-in.

Ice Conditions on Wentworth
 

Hello IG and others. First, I'd like to thank all the folks who have sent up the web cams and posted the messages about the ice conditions. For the past few weeks I've been reviewing the Ice-in Watch page to see how the ice on Winni is setting up. Looks as if mother nature isen't beeing nice to us out doors folks. Anyway, this is my firs message and I like to know if any folks out there know what the ice conditions are over on Wentworth. I'm planning to come up and fish on the 11th & 12th of February. I know it the BIG DERBY on Winnie but, we've already planned the weekend for Wentworth. Maybe next year we'll enter the Winnie derby. If any one out there has info on Wentworth please post a message. Thanks for the assistance and feed back from Jaybat in Central Mass.

Jaybat,

Everything you want to know can probably be found here...

http://www.lwa.org/

including a webcam....

Pepper:

Please don't post sad smiley faces about the lack of an "ice in". Think positively, it will be an early spring! If we were going through a difficult winter, there would be all sorts of chatter about wanting spring to arrive, etc. Pray from warm weather and lots of rain. We will be on the lake in our boats in mid April this year!

PS: I saved $500.00 bucks by not insuring the sleds this year. No snow, why insure them!

SecondCurve, I am sad because my snowshoes sit idle in the mudroom, I've yet to be able to have my very-first-ever snowmobile ride, and although this winter is unusually mild, we've been virtually unable to go outside and play. :( Besides that, I'm getting ready to take a much-anticipated cruise to the Caribbean, and what fun will it be to escape a "non-winter"? :rolleye1: :rolleye1: Thus far our only "winter joy" we can look forward to is the Alton Bay Winterfest, as we're participating in the bed race that day. My first winter with free-time, and I'm not having any fun yet! :eek: So, you can see why I post sad faces.

There is a silver lining to the dark cloud, however. If the weather stays mild, when we reopen in March we might actually be busy, because everyone will be opening up their cottages, starting construction projects, and generally just glad to be entering a season with some hope of fun! :D

Hi Pepper

Say, if you want the best of both worlds, head out to Portland, Oregon.

You want snow?

Mt. Hood is 60 miles away, and it has fourteen feet and counting, with great ski areas, both downhill and cross country, and mucho snow mobile trails.

Best of all, once you leave the mountains and return to the valley, there's no snow or ice.

Lots of rain though.

No Winter
 

I have to agree with Pepper....this is NH....there's supposed to be cold, snow, and ice! As much as I like camping, fishing, and going to the beach, I equally enjoy skiing, snowmobiling, and ice fishing! I think the four seasons are what makes New Hampshire the best place to live....a 6 month spring just doesn't do it for me :(

But, what can we do? "Let us accept the things we cannot change", right? Who knows....we could set a record in March for the most snow in a 30 day period! LOL.

Keep smiling, everybody!! :D

PS - anyone hear how the Derby meeting went today??

WMUR just reported that the Derby has been postponed one week.

Its my first winter living on the lake, and all I can do is watch the ice come, then go, then come. So much for taking my kids ice fishing and slidding down Tower Hill, but at least the heating bills are managable.

Thanks Merrymeeting
 

Thanks Merrymeeting for the link to Wentworths Lake Asscociation web site. Any news on next weekends Winnie Derby? Our Rod & Gun Club located in Upton, MA has postponed its Trout Derby scheduled for this weekend. Hope is not next weeked as a few of us are planning to head North up to NH to ice fish on Wentworth or somewhere. Just getting away for a few day up to NH is always a blast.:coolsm: I'd probably spend more time in the summer up in the Lakes Region but you can't catch Stripped Bass in the regoin that I'm awear. Thanks again for the link, it's appreaciated.

Stripers
 

Actually, I have unconfirmed reports that Winnipeasukee has a small elusive striped bass population....

That wasn't bottom you had when you lost your line trolling for salmon last spring...


:coolsm:

derby postponed one week
 

derby postponed one week

THanks, Pepper!
 

I see what you mean -- looks a bit damp off of Dinsmoor Point in on of those photos, doesn't it? ;-) I appreciate the heads up!

BTW -- we miss stopping by with the girls to visit. They keep asking when we can stop by for lunch again. Hopefully it's soon!

Gravy

Watching and waiting with you in PA.
 

I know we're all hoping and waiting for cold and ice. I'm coming up next weekend for the Derby (that I see has been postponed). However, I want you all to know that I have a student in PA. using this website as the basis for his science project. He's been using the daily photo from Alton, saving the aerial photos, using the lake temp chart and daily weather temps along with a few other links from here to keep a journal and predict when the lake will freeze. He has predicted Feb 10th and I hope he is right!! Anyway, I want to thank all of you for your comments and enthusiasm because he has only seen the lake through my pictures and he has more of a feeling of the importance of the lake freezing through all of you! Thanks... and by the way, it's 58 degrees and raining here, haven't seen snow or ice since December!

Well, between todays weather and the dock bubblers running 24/7 here, there may not be any ice left at the Weirs come this weekend. I went down to the lake last night and the open water by the peir and docks is getting bigger and bigger.

And Pepper, let me 2nd you opening up again soon, Gilford House is getting old....

GravyBoat and WeirsGuy -just a short while now! Should be somewhere in the last two weeks of March, unless Mother Nature decides to send us a few late winter blizzards and nor'easters. That would push it back a week or two.

Thanks for asking - it's nice to know we've been missed. :blush:

Thinking of Getting the Bass Boat Out
 

Hi Folks, Hope the weather in the lakes region is better than it's down here. Sitting in my office down here in Attleboro MA looking out the window and it's pouring and the temp is 55 degrees. :emb: I'm thinking about going home and uncovering the bass boat and heading down to Cape Cod to do some pond fishing. No ice at all down there. Only problem is cleaning the boat after traveling down the highway. Lets all pray mother nauture sends us a nice long cold spell to freeze up the lakes up in your region. I'm truly looking forward to spending a few weekend up there doing some fishing. Enjoy the up comming weekend and the Big Game.

Believe it or not...
 

18 of us were on Winnipesaukee this Firday, Saturday and Sunday ice fishing in the wolfeboro area. We have a little "mini-derby" of our own. We fished in the rain on friday, Saturday was very nice but warm, and yesterday it rained until about 10:00 then it cleared up for the last 2 hours of fishing. I have to be honest, if we had planned to fish today we would have had a big challenge getting on to the ice. As it was we had to assemble a makeshift "bridge" consisting of planks, boards & plywood just to get on to the ice. However once on the ice there was a solid 6 inches of black ice. Then we headed out to set up a tent over about 22 feet of water and we had 8 inches of black ice. The ice around the shore was poor. All of the incoming run off has been melting ice and preventing it from freezing up at night. Unfortunately I think all of that run off may be adversely effecting the fishing. We only managed two lakers, one perch, two rainbows and I think three salmon (which of course were all very nice fish because we can't keep them). The two rainbows were very nice also. The first was 1.9 pounds and the second was 2.2 pounds. Full of smelt. The lakers were both over 2 pounds. I will post some pictures from the weekend in the next day or so.

Looks like this week will help the ice a bit, and the long-range forecast for the next week (leading up to the re-scheduled Derby) will be quite frigid. I'm heading up for the 10-11-12 weekend, but won't do much fishing...

Ice Fishing in the Rain
 

Hi Flag, You must really enjoy ice fishing to go through all the work getting on the ice and then dealing with the rain. I'm sure the tent helped. Did you folks have much wind yesterday?

other than a gust or two the wind was a non-issue. The challenge was staying dry. With up to 4 inches of slush & water on top of the ice at times the waterproof-ness of your boots was a big factor.

Looks like we made some progress last night!

Yes, it's 7 degs here in West Alton this morning.

With temps the way they have been for the past few days/nights, why does it seem that the open water on the Broadview camera is getting bigger?

Wind
 

I suspect it is the wind.. we need some calm.:(

Remember "The Year with out Santa Claus..." Well this is "The Year With Out ICE!"

Yeah, that hole is disheartening. It keeps freezing over at night only to open back up durring the day. All the bubblers along the shore aren't helping either, the ice out there seems to move around a lot.

Wind certainly is a big factor. Many wonder why ice doesn't form right away when it hits 0 degrees (C). It is all chemistry and thermal energy. Once the water reaches 0 degrees (C) it takes a very large loss of energy in order for the molecules of water to change to a solid. This is known as Heat of Fusion. For example it takes the loss of 1 calorie to drop the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree (C). This is true until water reaches 0 degrees(C). Water must now change from a liquid to solid and this takes an additional loss of nearly 80 calories per gram of water. If you placed a thermometer in the water and watched as it cooled you would see a steady decline in temperature until it reached 0 degrees (C) then the temperature would remain at 0 degrees until all of the liquid had changed to a solid (ice).
If you have trouble understanding this don't worry my chemistry students had trouble also!:D :D

Ah ha . . .
 

Very well stated and understandable. It's a much better answer than . . . "it gets very cold and then a miracle happens"! :D

when fishing on questionable ice...
 

so here's how we prepared ourselves for fishing last weekend when the ice was questionable...

Rope, life jackets, and UV protection sunglasses...

Minge Cove
 

Does anyone know how Minge Cove looks as far as snowmoblile access from the marina off 11D out to Rattlesnake Island? We were going to come up today and take a look but mother nature changed our plans. I'm worried we're not going to get a good picture of what's going on now that there going to be 6"+ of snow on the lake.....Thanks! :D

When you refer to the "marina off 11D", are you referring to the Minge Cove Marina? That's actually off Minge Cove Rd., not 11D.

We saw several snowmobiles going between Minge Cove and Treasure Island yesterday. The ice thickness in that area is reportedly about 6" on average, but the thickness varies widely.

HOWEVER, there are still some large areas of open water along the Gilford shoreline between Ellacoya State Park and the Belknap Point Motel. As of yesterday, the largest area of open water stretched from the shoreline near the Belknap Point Motel more than 3/4 of the way out to Welch Island. That large area of open water is visible in the following photo, taken yesterday from Lincoln Park:

http://www.echoshores.com/ForumPics/BelknapPoint.jpghttp://www.echoshores.com/ForumPics/...int_021106.jpg


Further up the lake, yesterday there was a large area of open water between Meredith Bay and Governor's Island, and extending over toward The Weirs, which is visible in the following shot:

http://www.echoshores.com/ForumPics/Meredith_021106.jpg

Moral of the story ... while certain sections of the lake may be safe for snowmobiling, many areas are not safe at this point. If you decide to venture out, make absolutely sure the ice you will be travelling over is safe. Today's snowfall will make that determination more difficult, so be VERY careful out there.
http://www.echoshores.com/ForumPics/Meredith.jpghttp://www.echoshores.com/ForumPics/Meredith.jpg

Woo-hoo, bring on the snow!!
 

The Babes on Sleds and the rest of us snowdancers finally got the right steps. We have over a foot of snow here in northern NJ, heading toward the 18" mark. Hope this much makes it all the way to the lake. Looks like it is supposed to stop here in the late afternoon, although the snowfall has tapered off a bit. We even had thunder + lightning overnight. According to the newscast the storm is following Rte. 95 up the coast toward New England. Can't wait to get to Alton Bay next Saturday and see the Babes on Sleds in action!

not much in the lakes region
 

Forecast for the lakes region is approx 3-6 inches. Long range has temps on Wed Thurs Fri in the 40's with rain on Friday :( :( .

DRH, here's a similar pic taken from just west of the Condo's.
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopo...belknap_pt.jpg

DRH, we must have travelled the same road at different times

Long range forecast
 

I feel your pain, UTS. The temps are supposed to hit the 50's here by Thursday. I'm hoping that the long range forecast is wrong -- a lot can happen between now and Friday.

Excellent shot, upthesaukee. It really shows how large that area of open water is.