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With Ice Covering Sebago Lake, Expect a Record Crowd of Winter Anglers

February 03, 2009 - SEBAGO LAKE -- This year's Sebago Derby and festival has lost a few of its events – but with the lake already frozen, the popular ice fishing contest on Feb. 21 and 22 could draw its largest crowd yet.

Sebago Derby founder and director Tom Noonan said the most people the eight-year-old derby has drawn is 6,000, and there could be more this year as word spreads that the lake is frozen.

"There is a lot of talk on Sebago with the main bay frozen, a lot of anticipation for a good year. They said there were 30-mph winds one night, and it was 18 below. That finished it off," Noonan said.

The last time there was an early start to the ice fishing season on 28,700-acre Sebago Lake was in 2005, Noonan said.

Right now, it still is too early in the ice fishing season – which began Jan. 1 – to drive automobiles on the ice, Noonan said. But it's a great start for fishermen willing to scamper from cove to cove.

Bruce Allen of Cumberland has fished the lake for 30 years and remembers just a few times in the past 20 years that it froze over in mid-January.

Allen said 30 years ago, the entire lake would freeze over most years. Not in recent times – and rarely in the first month of ice fishing season.

"It's great to get all around the lake. We can fish different spots. There are a dozen different places you can jump back and forth," said Allen, 57.

Allen worried about Wednesday's storm that was expected to drop a foot of snow on the lake.

Heavy snowpack can weigh down the ice, push water up and create a whole lot of slush.

"It can be miserable. With the water between the snow and ice, everyone gets stuck in that. Hopefully, the wind will blow that snow off," Allen said.

Even if such conditions exist when the derby is held, Allen will fish it.

This year, the derby and festival will not offer all of the dozen or more activities staged at Sebago Lake in past years – for example, it will not have the ice sculpture event.

But with the growth in the ice fishing derby, it now competes with the ice fishing contest on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee as the top drawing derby in New England.

Winnipesaukee also gathers about 6,000 ice fishermen each year.

Sebago Lake's derby started as a fundraiser for local charities and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's efforts to protect the lake's fishery. It turned into a festival with everything from hot air balloons to auto races on ice.

Many of the fan favorites remain: the polar ice dip, the snowmobile radar runs, the hot air balloon and helicopter rides, and auto racing. But overall, fewer non-fishing activities will be offered.

"The derbies are what we do well. The other events are more dependent on weather conditions," Noonan said.

In addition, an ice track for the auto racing will be built in Windham, to guarantee good clean ice for better driving conditions.

Noonan guessed that several thousand people could show for the event with an entire lake to access.

"After observing the derby for eight years and the weather fishermen withstood, we feel very certain if a nuclear winter occurred in Maine, we will survive," Noonan said.

DERBY DETAILS
THE SEBAGO KIDS DERBY will be held Feb. 20, the Sebago Derby will take place Feb. 21 and 22, and the statewide derby will be held March 7 and 8.
DERBY OFFICIALS recommend that ice fishermen register online to save time on the day of the event.
TO LEARN MORE or to register, go to www.icefishingderby.com

DEIRDRE FLEMING, Portland Press Herald, January 29, 2009


Lakes: Sebago Lake
Regions: Sebago


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