LAKELAND - While it may require more bundling up and extra layers of clothing, winter in the Lakeland region brings plenty of opportunities to participate in outdoor recreational activities - including ice fishing.
With the ice fishing season now underway and folks heading to local lakes to cast lines through holes in the ice, businesses such as Lac La Biche Sporting Goods have been busy selling the equipment needed for a successful day on the lake.
Terry Moghrabi, manager of Lac La Biche Sporting Goods, says customers have been stopping by to purchase ice fishing gear such as augers, bait, tents, tackle, and lures.
“Pretty well everything that pertains to ice fishing,” he told Lakeland This Week.
As to when recreational ice fishers begin purchasing their equipment for the season, Moghrabi says this varies from year to year, and often depends on local ice conditions.
“Nobody really starts to buy a lot of that product until they can utilize it,” he says. “Usually, that goes hand-in-hand with the ice conditions.”
While a lack of snow last winter was a challenge for outdoor enthusiasts in the Lac La Biche area, according to Moghrabi, it was beneficial for ice fishing.
Despite getting off to a good start, Moghrabi explained that this year’s ice fishing season was slow going at first because it took longer for the ice on local lakes to reach a safe level of thickness. The reason for this, he says, was due to mild temperatures during the autumn months, as well as snow that had accumulated on the ice, which slows down the freezing process.
For last year’s ice fishing season, as soon as cold temperatures arrived in the region, the ice got thick fast and was also more easily accessible due to the lack of snow.
“Last year, we didn’t get any snow, so we had no insulation whatsoever on the lake, so when it got cool, it was a lot easier for the ice to freeze with no blanket of snow on top of the ice,” he explains. “Anybody could get onto the lake last year with a car, side by side . . . You didn’t need to have a big four-wheel drive or snowmobile to go ice fishing.”
Ice fishing season in Alberta officially ends on March 31. Provincial legislation mandates that all fishing shacks must be removed from public water bodies by the same date.
According to My Wild Alberta, a sportfishing license is required in Alberta for most people who want to get out on the ice and fish, except youth under 16 years of age, Alberta residents aged 65 and older, and First Nations' persons.
