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outdoors Winter Fishing Rule: Keep Warm , Dry

There is a long list of things people choose not to do for one reason or another. For many, fishing in the winter in cold weather is one of them. Here in the Northeast, where we get some cold weather in the winter, there are lots of choices for those who do not mind the cold. For those who have tried and have never ventured forth again, the odds are that you were cold or wet or perhaps both before the day was over. And that's one of the fifst rules of cold weather fishing. Always be warm and dry. It is easy enough to be both if you wear the proper attire. i AS FOR THE second rule of wintertime angling, i always fish in safety, be it on the ice or out in a boat. < Any fall into cold water in < the winter is a severe shock to your system. , The survival time in cold < water is limited because of i

hypothermia. But falling overboard or through the ice can be avoided. It is a matter of being extremely careful. Fishing on ice is another matter. There are some hard and fast rules for safety. Abide by them and you can enjoy ice fishing in safety. Here are some basic rules regarding ice: START WITH this information from the American PulpwoSd Association, which has done some work in this regard. Their table for safety on ice is based on clear, blue ice on lakes and ponds. This is usually the solid ice which forms during the days and nights when there is extreme low temperature. If ice covers a running stream or river, reduce strength values by at least 15 per cent. Slush ice has only one half the strength of blue ice. Remember that the figures suggested here

ALMANAC ~ FEBRUARY. 1986 MOON PHASES/POSITIONS CORRECTION TIMES The Moon's effect on th» Tide is Compute approximate timet greatest when closest to Earth * oj high £ low water for your (in perigee) and when in direct area by adding or subtracting alignment with Sun £ Earth the following number of (full f new moon phases / On minutes for each tide phase in and about these dates, low the Tide Table, pressure systems and/or strong winds (depending upon direction) may result in .flooding and /or extremely low tides Moon Phases LOW HIGH SSSST:.: :: i „ FM Quanrr I, P'"'2 „ P1""" Full Moon II Ocean (Mi St Bridge* plus 35 plus 22 Apogee IS Corson ,n,rt lbnd8el Perigee I P'"*21 plus 7 Sea Isle City iLudlam Thoro Bridge i TIDE TABLE plus 66 plus 43 Computed for Cape May City Sea Isle City Beach ' beachfront, for other areas, see minus2 minus!! Correction Times Townsend Inlet DATE HIGH LOW plus 21 plus 4 a.m. p.m. a.m. p.m. Seven Mile Beach * 1 Sal 12:11-12:24 6:11- 6:27 pluS 15 0 2 Sun 1:06- 1:24 7:21- 7:34 „ Harbor 3 Mon 2:10- 2:34 8:33- 8:42 'Great Channel Bridge) 4 Tue 3:20- 3:51 9:38- 9:47 plus 43 plus 40 3 Wed 4 28— 5:00 10:42—10:47 Hereford Inlet (Anglesea ) 6, Thu 5:29- 6:00 11:37- plus 19 0 7 Fn 6:8- 6:51 11:46-12:33 Wildwood Beach 8 Sat 7:13- 7 39 12:43- 1:23 Mimls2 9 Sun 7 58- 8:22 1:34 - 2:07 Mmus2 , 10 Mon 8:41- 9:05 2:21- 2:49 West Wildwood 11 Tue 9:23- 9 48 3:05- 3:28 ' Grassy Channel bridge ) 12 Wed 10 04-10 28 3:44- 4 04 plus 46 plus 43 13 Thu 10 46- 11 10 4:25- 4:41 Cape May Harbor 14 Fri 11:27-11:51 5:07- 5:18 plus 1 minus4 15 Sat 12 08 5:52- 6:00 F.v. F.lh__ r-.i, 16 Sun 12:35-12:56 6:50- 6:52 . fathom Bank 17 Mon 1:22- 1 48 7:53 7:51 ^ P 18 Tue 2 17 2 53 8:54 8 50 Cape May Point 19 Wed 3:22- 4:02 9:51- 9 49 plus 46 plus 34 20 Thu 4:24- 5:03 10:45-10:42 McCne Shoal 21 Fli 5:20- 5:53 11:32- 11:32 plus 28 plus 22 22 Sal 6 06 6 37 12 20 Delaware Bay 23 Sun 6 51 7 18 12:23- 1 04 R,v.h,r iTul, 24 Mon 7:29- 7:58 I 09- 1 46 shore Channel 25 Tue 8 11 8:39 1 52 2 23 ' Bay -Canal Junction) 26 Wed 8 52- 9:20 2 37- 3:02 P1"5 47 plus36 27 Thu 9 37- 10:06 3 19- 3:40 Miami Beach 28 Fri 10:24-10:57 4:04- 4:21 phls7S plus61 Dennis Creek Entrance plus 1 14 plus 97 Brandywine Shoal Light plus 77 phis 52

; are minimums and based on excellent quality of the ice. ICE TWO INCHES thick • can support one person on foot. Three-inch ice can support a group in single file, spaced apart. Ice 7'^ to 8 inches thick can support a passenger car up to two tons in gross weight and eight to 10 inches can support a light truck in the two to 2'2-ton range. But these are figures for ideal ice conditions without taking into consideration that the ice may have air bubbles in if. The ice may also be weak from having bits and pieces of vegetation frozen into it. Ice around cattails and reeds along the shoreline can also be weak. Our own basic rule is to double any of the above figures, at least, before we venture out on the ice. HERE IN Cape May County, the days when we have ice of suitable quality for ice skating and for fishing are few in number. But many of us do leave the area to head for places north of us for winter sports. Many North Jersey lakes offer quality winter fishing through the ice. There is plenty of ice fishing in the Poconos and in New England and Canada. Ice fishing is not the only sport available on frozen lakes and ponds. Skating, sledding and riding on snowmobiles are but a few. There are even some who enjoy' a visit to a frozen lake at night to picnic, sit around a fire and watch the skaters and sledders enjoy themselves. UP WHERE WE fish in Northwest Quebec, ice four to five feet thick has been reported on the cove where the boats are docked in the summer fishing season. The camp has retained its primitive atmosphere in many ways. It is 28 miles from the railroad and 100 miles from the nearest town. It is accessible only by train. From the railroad it is a bumpy 28-mile ride in a truck which was brought in and unloaded at the railroad. It is used only to go back and forth once a day from the camp to meet the train. Everything is brought to the camp via the train and the truck or by airplane. There is no electricity as we know it. A DIESEL generator is operated from 9 p.m. to midnight to provide some electricity for the battery chargers and to bring the freezers back down to their below-zero temperatures. If you have an electric razor, be prepared to shave from 9 p.m. to midnight or forget it.

But the story here is ice. To provide ice for the entire summer, the camp operators fly back in the dead of winter (sometimes with the wind chill factor it is 50 degrees below zero). They have a mechanical ice cutter which carves out blocks of ice weighing about 100 pounds. THESE ARE SKIDDED across the cove to an ice house, where the ice is put on a conveyer and into the ice house. Layers of sawdust are alternated between the layers of ice. The ice house is actually below the ground. The roof is peaked but the eaves are only a foot above ground. Once the ice house is filled, the place is closed up for the rest of the winter until the camp opens in May. From May to September, the camp is run with the ice from the ice house. The sawdust and the belowground location provide sufficient insulation. EVEN THE occasional drink which requires ice "cubes" is laced with ice from the ice house. Sometimes a little sawdust creeps into the bourbon and water, but it's not all that bad. What that ice house brings to mind is one from our youth across the street from our home on Laurel Road in Stratford, N.J. This was a fairly large old building made of stone and mortar. It was three stories -high, with two stories below the ground. That ice house was stocked with ice from nearby Kirkwood lake. It provided all the ice needed for refrigeration all summer on a dairy farm with a herd of over 100 cows. WHEN WE MOVED to Stratford in the early 30's, the ice house was still in use. The ice was cut with special saws and transported via horse and wagon to the farm. It was put into the ice house in layers with sawdust to serve as an insulator. It worked well. We remember the ice cutting even though it ended well before World War II. We also remembr the countless hours of playing ice hockey with clamp-on skates and sticks cut from any tree which had a limb with a knot big enough and twisted enough to make it into some, kind of hockey stick. The beat hockey puck was an evaporated milk can which tye carefully crushed into a puck-sized mass of tin. Evaporated milk cans worked well as hockey pucks because they had two holes in the top instead of having the top cut out with a can opener. A COUPLE OF "rich" kids had shoe skates. If

they got to uppity, a whack in the shins just above the laces on the skates brought them down a peg or two. And, even 50 years later, we can still justify most of those whacks, because those kids really did deserve it. Mainly, I guess we resented their attitudes more than their affluence. It wasn't our fault we had clamp-on skates. We just didn't like to be reminded all the time that we lacked some of the material things their affluence bought. Some people took cars out on the lake. Kirkwood and Stratford in the middle 20's got cold. The lake would freeze thick enough to cut ice for the ice house on the farms and to hold the weight of the cars in those days. WE DIDN'T get to ice fish then. Our ice fishing days came after World War II when we had left Stratford. But we did fish a lot around Kirkwood Lake and all of the other lakes in the area within walking distance of the house. Our cold water fishing started early in the fall and stayed with us in the spring. We were able to fish the running water below the spillway well into early winter. We caught a few perch -and sunfish there. We did manage to get cold and wet doing it. however. We learned at an early age that we did not like to be cold and wet. We avoid it whenever we can. ICE FISHING preparations include layers of warm clothes which can be donned and shed as the day progresses. We keep extra clothes in the vehicle on shore in case we do get wet. Insulated boots and wool socks keep our feet warm. Wool gloves work well on the fingers. They retain warmth even if they get wet. Some of the new nonabsorbing synthetics also keep insulating qualities if they get wet. If you are prepared in advance, you will be better able to handle an accidental dunking in cold weather. Hypothermia is the primary danger. If you do get soaked, getting dry and warm as soon as possible is the first concern. THAT EXTRA change of clothing in your car or truck will come in handy. It doesn't take much room and it could come in handy The heater in your car or truck will help. If the vehicle is not close by, get a fire started and dry as much of your clothing as possible. Even if there is no lifethreatening situation, being cold and wet will cause the trip to come to an end. An extra pair of boots, some socks and a pair of pants saved one of my best

cold weather fishing trips for pickerel some years ago. We had just located some nice pike in a stream and had hooked and landed a couple. IN THE EXCITEMENT. I ventured too close to the edge and suddenly found myself in water well over my boot top6. It was below freezing and my feet suddenly were a lot colder than any fisluvere worth. A quick trip to the truck and a fast change into dry stuff allowed me to keep fishing for the rest of the day. f On many fishing trips, the day went better because I had a spare jacket, pair of pants and shirt in a plastic bag. Foul weather gear is often somewhere else and of little value if a sudden wave throws enough water to soak our outerwear. If you are going to fish . cold weather, dress warm,^/^ and keep dry. It will addfa lot to the fun. ^ Hobie Cat Nationals At Cape CAPE MAY - This city will host the 1986 Men's and Women's Hobie Cat 16 National Championships Sept. 16-28, according to Terrance Brown, Civic Affairs Director. Drew Patey. representing the Hobie Cat Nationals Committee and a former New Jersey resident, visited Cape May last week and confirmed that the city had been selected as the site of the Hobie 16 Nationals. Plans are for the women's competition to be staged Sept. 16-20 and have the men take to the winner Sept. 21-28. THE HOBIE National Committee will arrive in advance of the competitiors to make the necessary preparations, which include assembling 54 sixteen-foot Hobie Cats that all racers will be required to use. "The one thing that separates the Nationals from all other Hobie Cat Regattas," states Patey, "is that this event is a true test of sailing skill, you against the other sailor with no equipment advantages!" ESPN, the sports network, is expected to cover the event, as are most local television and radio outlets. For additional information, call the Department of Civic Affairs, 884-8411.

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