Jer

Be careful on Pigeon. It's not a well travelled lake in the winter, especially so far this year. To find 12' of water from the south, you'll be dangerously close to the opening to Gannon's Narrows. There was alot of open water in that area just a few short weeks ago. Why not try Chemong? The ice is much more consistent, although there may be some thinner spots in the middle of the lake, there is plenty of access to water up to 15' or 17' deep. There's already a number of established little hut villages at the hot spots. I would still discourage car or truck traffic, but we've been drilling 6" to 8" the last couple weeks. Haven't caught any bluegill yet this year in a few outings, but have gotten some nice ones in the past couple years.

...if at all possible.

Ice age???

I didn't know OhioFisherman owned any mining companies....

Started with me as soon as I upgraded to IE9. Roy was to look into it, but it's still the same, it won't allow you to pick from the drop-down menu on your profile link, just sends you to the profile immediately.

I think this one's bigger...

Unless you're buying a TV... having said that, still alot of TVs from the eighties are still working. Don't think we'll see many of today's TVs working in 30 years.

Finally got an ice-fishing fix today on Chemong, only 6 or 7 little perch between the two of us but it was nice to be out. The ice where we were was 7" - 8" everywhere we drilled. Again this was ice that has been established for weeks, I'm sure there are lots of thinner spots out there.

There's no heat source down there except for the baseboard, it's not really living space, just storage. Upstairs I heat 95% with the woodstove, that heat doesn't get to the basement.

It's certainly taught me that our biggest power spike is from the hot-water tank, showers and laundry are obvious on the graph. It's a neat tool, I can even see the fridge cycling on every hour or so during low usage periods when no one is home or we're asleep. Last Tuesday night when it was really cold (-23C or so), I could see that the baseboard in the basement had cycled on a few times. I keep that t-stat set at only 5C or so just to keep the pipes from freezing.

If you're with Hydro One and have a smart meter, create an account here and you can track usage by the hour, with a 24 hour lagtime. I check the site every few days and look for suspicious spikes in usage. It helped my realize we had left the baseboard heater on in the spare room one time after we had overnight company. Could have stayed on for weeks if I hadn't checked usage.

I was surprised when you said the towing capacity was only 1500lb, 3600lb seems more realistic. The last minivan I had was a '98 Caravan, I towed my old 16' boat everywhere with that and never had a problem at a launch that was in reasonable shape.

What I have found works best: Anchor the two corners on the windward side first, pop the top, pop all four sides, anchor the other two corners. Pre-drill the holes for the anchors with a cordless drill with a long 1/4" bit.

Didn't you just retire?

Just looking at the pictures, from the first to the second, you'd think you left the poor lad sleeping out on the ice all night. Beautiful scenery to be on the ice.

You would have to ask them what their comfort level might be. Kinda hard for us to read their mind. That being said, it really depends on what they use to move their huts. If it's by truck, they would probably want 10" to 12", if by snowmobile or ATV, 6" to 8" is probably enough. There are huts starting to appear on Chemong on probably 6" of ice. Nobody's hauling them out with their pick-up though.

Why wouldn't you call the OPP? Why would you call a conservation officer to report impaired boating?

Do they come in a panfish size?

Most shelters only allow entry during mealtimes and overnight. Otherwise, they're on their own. The beds aren't meant to be permanent residences.

Bob...I think everybody sees something wrong with this...except for the scammers of course. ...and the lawyers. As he said, costs more for the insurance company to fight the suit, so they settle. One of the reasons Ontarions (is that a word?) pay the highest premiums in Canada.

It's Manitoba...they got ice...they were probably fishin'.

Hey Lew, no worries about that open water. It generally stays open all winter at that spot under and just north of the bridge due to current flow.

The wind today did us a favour, blew the ice more or less clear of snow. Just in time for our mini cold spell.

I would think with an 8" auger, it might be bit much for the drill. An 8" hole has almost twice the surface area of a 6" hole.

I had an adaptor made up a couple years ago for my 6" manual auger. We used it on my buddy's 18V Craftsman drill. We rigged a bucket lid to the auger to keep it from falling through the hole if the chuck let go. Did a great job to start, up to about 10 or 12 inches of ice, it seemed we could drill all day with two battery packs, fast as well. Though it was tough on the drill itself (think bearings). Once the ice got thicker, up to 22" that year, it became basically useless. We would be lucky to get two holes drilled per battery. I bought a power auger last year and never bothered with the cordless again except for pre-drilling the anchors for my hut. That being said, I know one guy with a smaller 5" auger on a professional grade (think $600 or so) Dewalt that makes Swiss cheese of the ice all winter long.