Manitoba outdoorsmen are calling on ice fishermen to make sure they’re taking after them — and to make sure they have a plan for when nature calls.
Rick Gergatz, administrator of the Lake Winnipeg Ice Report Facebook group, recently posted an article about ice fishing etiquette, with thousands of people now heading to the province’s rivers and lakes.
He says a big problem, especially on Lake Winnipeg, is that ice fishermen sometimes don’t have a plan for what to do when they inevitably have to use the restroom and leave their human waste on the ice or on shore.
“If we’re talking about thousands of people on the lake, it becomes a bigger problem. We get upset when raw sewage from the city is dumped into the river — it’s the same thing,” Gergatz said in an interview with CBC Manitoba News Radio on Friday.
“It’s not a sanitary thing.”
LISTEN | When nature calls, have a plan, the ice fisherman says:
Info Radio – MB6:58 With the sport growing in popularity in Manitoba, here’s what you need to know about ice fishing etiquette
Rick Gergatz, who runs the Lake Winnipeg Ice Report Facebook page, tells Most Marcy Markusa about a few things to keep in mind when it comes to ice fishing etiquette.
People also often leave their trash on the ice, including propane canisters and beer cans, Gergatz said.
“There’s nothing more disheartening than being two miles out on the lakeshore, not a single soul around, and seeing a bucket of mines drifting past you in the wind,” he said.
“It’s just a matter of respecting the environment, respecting the other people around you.”
Rick Gergatz hopes ice anglers will clean up their waste and trash to protect bodies of water for other users. (Rick Gergatz/Facebook)
Katherine Seed has a cabin in the Winnipeg Beach area. When she and her husband go ice fishing, they pick up their own trash as well as other people’s — sometimes more than one trash bag, she said.
This year, the litter problem actually got worse as the milder weather drew more people to the ice, Seed said.
“I find it disgusting. I actually find it very disturbing,” she told CBC Manitoba Radio Noon on Friday.
“We get beer cans, liquor bottles, McDonald’s wrappers, Tim Hortons wrappers, coffee mugs — you name it, it’s all there.”
And whatever trash doesn’t pick up from the ice in the winter, it “ends up on our shore, so we end up picking it up in the spring,” she said.
Seed also wants fellow ice anglers to remember to take their trash with them when they leave the ice and dispose of it in trash cans at the lake or at home.
“There’s no excuse to be in the little shack over there, drinking a beer… put it on the ice and leave it. This is nonsense.’
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