All that ice can be bad for birds, boats and men

Here on Delmarva we’re surrounded by so much water that it’s no mystery that when things start to ice up everywhere you look — puddles, ponds, ditches, canals, marshes, rivers and bays — glaze over, much to the dismay of a lot of seagulls and waterfowl that are always happier to be paddling around “in” rather than slipping around “on” our local waterways.

For sportsmen, ice is a bit of a double-edged sword. When we have ice around here you can bet that there is a heck of a lot more of it up north which will push a lot of waterfowl down this way.

But what good is it to have all the birds in the world flying past your duck blind when you can’t get to your blind because your boat is stuck in a frozen canal.

On the other hand, sometimes a good freeze will allow hunters access to marshes or swamps that they might otherwise not be able to walk through because the path in is always too mucky or wet.

For those who live on the water, waking up to ice around the backyard dock or bulkhead can provide an interesting change of view.

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But after a while you realize that a frozen body of water is just a big chunk of ice that doesn’t change much and, unlike liquid water, isn’t likely to captivate one’s attention for more than a moment.

Until it breaks up and starts to float away there’s no movement and no life to ice — there’s just cold.

The longer ice stays around the worse it gets, from just a glaze on the surface, to a half-inch, an inch, and on from there. When the temperatures are in the 20s or teens, you can bet that it’s getting a little thicker and a little more spread out each night.

As the icing increases, anyone who has a dock, a bulkhead, a boat, a lift or, anything else in the water will need to start monitoring the progression and decide if their properties or possessions could be damaged by the thickening hard stuff. 

A little frozen rainwater in the bottom of a boat can prevent the float switch from moving and make the bilge pump inoperative which could allow the boat to sink at the dock. A boat that’s locked in by ice might not be able to be moved out of harm's way when a big storm approaches.

Ice surrounding a boat can chafe and damage the hull. Thick ice that forms around docks can take such a tight hold that when the tide rises it pulls the pilings up and out of the bottom.

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Broken up ice flows pushed by wind or current can clog up waterways in a matter of minutes and sometimes have enough force to dislodge and push along boats, docks, buoys and anything else in their path.

Unless you’re a skater, ice can really be a pain.

The good news is that as long as you stay vigilant, it’s usually not too hard to prevent damage from ice. Getting boats out of the water before the ice forms is the best move, but when that’s not possible, the formation of ice around a boat or a dock can be minimized or prevented altogether with the right tools and a little work.

Just walking around the dock and breaking up thin ice with a length of pipe or wooden board can be enough to keep it from getting to a damaging thickness. A small outboard idling at the dock with its engine in gear can break a lot of ice in a little time – but you had better make sure the boat is tied up securely!

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A safer and more effective way to keep a small body of water open is to use an “Ice-Eater,” which is a waterproof electric motor with a small propeller inside a sturdy plastic housing. Even if thick ice has already formed it can be lowered through a hole, plugged in, and the strong circulation will blast the surrounding ice apart. 

Fortunately, in these latitudes ice isn’t something we have to deal with every winter and almost never “all” winter — but we do have our moments.

Since sportsmen can’t avoid it all together the best we can do is to use ice to our advantage when we can, and stay ahead of it when we must.