Pa. anglers anxious for colder weather for ice fishing, but will it arrive in 2024?

Pennsylvania anglers who like to fish through the ice are hoping for a colder winter than last year.

There was spotty ice in January and February in places around the commonwealth and anglers were afforded little time to spend on the ice.

Jerry Van Tassel Jr. has been organizing an annual ice fishing tournament for the past 23 years on Canadohta Lake in Crawford County. Last year was the second time he couldn’t hold the event because there was little ice.

The 54-year-old owns Van Tassel’s Timberland Bait in Union City, in Erie County, and he’s optimistically watching the weather forecasts. His 2024 tournament is scheduled for Feb. 10 with a weather make-up date of Feb. 24. “But it’s not looking good. I just heard on The Weather Channel this is going to be one of the warmest winters on record for some time, but who knows?” he said in a telephone interview.

He looks forward to the tournament and ice fishing generally for a couple reasons.

“The camaraderie, I see my annual guys coming back every year to open up their cabins to partake in this. Ice fishermen are like a rare breed. They all like the same thing. We sit around and eat and have a good time,” he said. “It blows off the winter blues a little bit.”

Canadohta Lake is a 170-acre waterway in Crawford County that can be a challenge to fish. “They call it dead lake, but there are certain guys who come off of that lake with a bucket full of crappie,” Van Tassel said. The key is having the electronics, like fish finders and flashers, that detect schools and pockets of fish. “You have to poke a lot of holes,” in the ice, he said.

In the early years of the tournament, he said, there wasn’t a question if there would be enough ice to fish as it was common to have 16 inches or more of ice on the lake.

“Last year it came fast and furious. Before Christmas we had a foot of snow and it was 20 to 25 below wind-chill factors and we thought we were going to have a good ice fishing year. And then all of the sudden, it cleared off and we didn’t even put the plow on the truck. It fizzled right out. I think they only ice fished two days and that was it,” he said.

In addition to the loss of the recreational opportunity, ice fishing also has an economic impact in areas with lakes. “February is my most profitable month of the entire 12 months of the year because of ice fishermen and the tournaments,” Van Tassel said. “It’s just phenomenal. It’s hard to describe.”

His tournament averages about 200 anglers, but he’s had as many as 375 participants. They pay each $25 to participate and it includes a meal. Half the money raised goes back to anglers in prizes.

“It’s a lot of work,” he said about organizing the event. “I’m praying for ice.”

Anglers can stay up to date about the tournament on his bait shop’s website, timberlandbait.com, and Facebook page.

“I can’t predict the weather. We take our knocks as they come. If we don’t get an ice fishing year, we don’t get an ice fishing year,” he said. “It is what it is. We don’t always get what we want, we get what Mother Nature is going to present to us and go from there.”

Unfortunately for ice anglers, the National Weather Service in State College isn’t optimistic about ice forming on lakes this year.

“Since we are currently in an El Niño phase, that tends to be more towards the warmer temperature side. Looking at the three-month outlook, it looks like we are going to be a little bit above normal temperatures across the entire state,” said Sonya Lewis, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

“Not saying it’s impossible that it won’t happen, but it’s not looking to be favorable,” she said.

She said there could be high temperatures in the 50s during parts of the winter.

More: Huge crappie caught at Lake Wilhelm falls just short of Pennsylvania record

Ice fishing in southwestern Pennsylvania

Phillip Gordon, 47, of Mount Braddock, in Fayette County, has been fishing through the ice for about three decades.

He remembers learning to ice fish with his friend in the 1990s on High Point Lake in Somerset County, home to Mount Davis, the highest elevation in Pennsylvania. “Back in those days we didn’t have ice fishing equipment. We had an auger and used our regular fishing rods,” he recalled in a telephone interview. “We would catch pike and it would be a blast.”

Now he has a shelter, heater and fish finding equipment that he takes out on the ice. However, he said, you don’t have to invest a lot of money to ice fish. “You just need something to sit on, a little ice fishing rod, a couple jigs or some hooks with waxworks or maggots. Man, you can just go there and have a blast,” he said.

He fishes at a variety of waterways in the region including Green Lick Reservoir and Dunlap Lake, but High Point Lake is his main spot because it usually forms ice before other lakes. He’s catching pickerel, pike, perch and bluegill at High Point. “It’s got a really good population of 8- to 10-inch bluegill which are delicious to eat and they are a blast to catch,” Gordon said.

Even in milder winters, he said High Point has been a lake he could count on. “There’s never been a year where you can’t get on High Point at least a couple days,” he said. “If you get a good week of cold weather and it’s dry, it’s off to the races from there."

In addition to warmwater species, he said there are some good trout lakes around the state the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks each fall. “If you get a 12-,14- or 16-inch trout on, it’s a blast. It really is,” he said.

Ice fishing in Erie County

Lake Erie is known to be a hotspot for ice fishing. However, the weather doesn’t always cooperate.

“We’ve not had the lake freeze over in at least five years. The bay has frozen over, but not for very long,” said Marty Grzasko, 76, past president of the Pennsylvania Steelhead Association and a Fairview resident.

More: Temperatures in Erie warming across all four seasons; effects felt by people, plants, animals

Ice fishing on Presque Isle Bay typically starts in early January at Horseshoe Pond and later on in Misery Bay.

If temperatures are low enough, the entire bay becomes fishable. When it does, there can be hundreds of people fishing with their shanties on the ice. “That’s how popular it can be,” he said.

Anglers on the ice are catching crappie, perch, bluegill, northerns and occasionally steelhead among other species, too.

Why ice fish in Pennsylvania?

Mike Parker, communications director with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, said the activity is something people can do to enjoy solitude, while others go in groups or families for more of a tailgating type of day.

“The mystery of ice fishing just adds to it,” Parker said. You may be targeting panfish and be surprised when you catch a channel catfish or northern pike through the hole on the ice.

If you know what you’ll need, now is the time to purchase gear from a sport shop before supplies dwindle during a winter cold front. If you are new to the sport, Parker recommends going with someone who is experienced on the ice and already has the proper gear such as an auger and maybe a portable hut or tent.

He recommends new anglers experience ice fishing before they make a significant investment in gear. “You want to make sure it’s right for you,” he said.

Ice fishing is another way to help anglers make the most of their fishing license. “Fishing in Pennsylvania is a 365-day opportunity,” Parker said.

Learn to ice fish: Curious about ice fishing in Pennsylvania? Here’s what you need to know

Ice fishing safety considerations

“The main thing you got to do is have your safety equipment,” Gordon said. He wears a jacket and bibs that float and wears ice picks (awls) in case he needs to pull himself out of a hole.

Gordon also takes a heavy spud bar to punch through the ice as he makes his way across a lake. The bar is able to quickly alert him if there’s a thin spot. He also recommends taking someone with you in case either angler needs help.

“It’s a great family activity for wintertime. You see a lot of kids on High Point. You see a lot of families with their wives, husbands and kids enjoying the day. It’s one of those things where you don’t need a lot of money and you can really have a good time and enjoy it,” Gordon said.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: PA ice fishing no sure thing in 2024 if pessimistic forecasts hold up