Jan 24, 2015 3 min read

ERIE – For ice fishermen on Misery Bay last week, it wasn’t all about bluegill and crappie.

Temperatures in the teens, low wind, blue sky and 7 to 8 inches of ice took some of the sting out of limited nibbles on their lines.

“It’s just nice to be out here,” said Derek Elder, 24, of Erie. Elder worked third shift early Wednesday and then drove directly to Presque Isle State Park. “When the sun comes up over the trees and you see the city, it’s a different scene.”

“It’s peaceful,” said Justin Wood, 29, of Erie. “It’s relaxing. It’s like your own world.”

About 20 fishermen sat on stools, sat inside dark huts watching images from submerged cameras, or stood sharing fish stories as they watched for activity on their lines. It was one of the early days of this ice-fishing season. Ice thick enough to safely walk on – and fish on – set up on Misery Bay over the last 10 days.

“I was out here on the last day of duck season on Jan. 3, and the ice was just a glass coat,” Elder said.

Misery Bay generally freezes over in mid- to late December, but higher-than-average temperatures in December 2014 delayed that, fishermen said. Average daily temperatures were 2.7 degrees warmer than normal, according to National Weather Service data.

The 2015 ice-fishing season only began in earnest this past weekend, fishermen said.

“Last year, we started fishing two weeks before Christmas,” Elder said.

On Wednesday, pickings were slim. Some fishermen walked out farther onto Misery Bay, toward Perry Monument, to drill new holes into the ice, hoping for more action there.

“It’s pretty slow today,” Bill Walsh, 69, of Cambridge Springs, said Wednesday. “It’s too nice out.”

Fish bite better when it’s snowing or overcast, said Mark McDanel, 37, of New Castle.

“It’s better when the barometer drops, and it’s not one of these sunny, bluebird days,” McDanel said.

Being out on the bay on a beautiful day Wednesday was part of the lure for Craig Nadolny, of Columbus, and Barry Pieper and Joe Schneider, both of Union City.

“We’re country boys. We like being outside. We don’t like to sit home on the couch,” Pieper, 45, said.

This winter season isn’t likely to measure up to the 2013-14 season, when consistently cold temperatures resulted in a particularly long season of particularly thick ice, fishermen said.

“The only bad thing last year was the brutal cold,” Walsh said.

Pieper estimates that the ice on Misery Bay last winter was 22 to 24 inches thick.