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Brenda Robbins down at the east end of the lake has reported their green Coleman canoe has floated off. Something like this seems to happen every spring to someone or other! If you should happen to spot it, tie it up if you can and let George Fergusson know. Thank you!
September 2013 picture of Art Enos’s dock. It just so happens his dock did NOT have floating decking but if it had, it would have floated away!
Despite it being early April, many people have already put in their docks this year, perhaps because the lake is relatively low for this time of year, or they just want to get a jump on the boating season. Like who doesn’t? However, most of the docks I’ve seen are just barely clear of the water. The lake is currently only 0.17 feet (2 inches) below the HWM, much lower than it’s been the past two years on this date. While it’s been relatively dry so far this year, it is not unreasonable to expect significant spring rains at any time. If that happens the lake could easily rise 3-4 inches (or more!) almost overnight and flood the docks. If your dock is of the stationary (not floating) kind and if your decking is of the unattached floating variety, you might want to make sure to attach it to the frame so it doesn’t float away. Zip ties work well for this or use some clothes line or something similar to tie the decking down.
Some mornings I look out at Clary Lake and it just takes my breath away.
Wait. What?
I suppose this sounds like an April Fools post. I wish it was! To be honest, I had considered a gag post for April 1st but couldn’t round up the gumption to do it. So here I was, minding my own business when I noticed that for the past hour or so, Clary_cam1 had not been uploading pictures. Rebooting didn’t help and I couldn’t connect to it with my phone. So I went to look it over and found that a critter, most likely a squirrel, chipmunk, or maybe even a mouse (given the size of the tooth marks), had chewed the end of the wireless antenna off (picture at left) allowing rain to get inside and shorting it out. Harrumph. Well it turns out the manufacturer used essentially the same antenna on this camera as on the old cameras, so I was able to swap out the antenna with a working one. Problem solved. You’re welcome! Continue reading
March 2021
I have archived the March 2021 Water Level Chart (at left). Precipitation was again slow to accumulate in March and we ended the month with only 2.00 inches of rain, well below the monthly average of 3.77 inches. Despite the lack of snow pack and the lack of rain, we did succeed in filling the lake before the end of the month, and on pretty much the same date as last year. We did this by adding one or two stop logs, gradually raising the lake level (the black dashed line on the chart represents the height of stop logs in the weir). The dam’s gate was closed for the entire month and was only opened 1 foot on the 30th in anticipation of a significant rain event on expected on April 1st, no fooling! Filling the lake in the spring is made easier when there is more water to work with; we were able to do it this spring largely at the expense of meeting the minimum flow requirement. We started the month with the lake level down -1.15 feet below the HWM and ended up on March 31st with the lake at -0.20 feet below the HWM with a little water running over the dam. The ice went out on March 29th. Continue reading
Some years, ice out on Clary Lake can be pretty dramatic and I like to put together videos using photos from our webcams. Here are two such videos from this year. The first one, from Clary_cam3 includes pictures from one day, March 27th. The second from Clary_cam1 includes pictures from 3 consecutive days starting March 25th and ending at nightfall on the 28th. You can watch them on the website, but I recommend you view them full screen on YouTube. Enjoy.
Lots of ducks in this one, they come for the corn my wife feeds them.
Ironically, the “official” ice out date for Clary Lake this year occurred a day after these two videos, on March 29th.
Ice Out 28 March 2021
I’m calling the OFFICIAL Clary Lake Ice Out date today, March 29th. I’m also calling yesterday the “What Do You Mean It’s Not Ice Out Yet?” day, yesterday, March 28th. This morning there are only a few vestiges of ice remaining and I’m sure the sun and wind will make short work of them today. We therefore have 3 winners of our 2021 Clary Lake Ice Out contest: Bambi Jones for guessing the “official” Ice Out date, and Kelley Doore and Alan Nicholas Decker for coming the closest to the “What Do You Mean It’s Not Ice Out Yet?” date of March 28th without going over. Fortunately we have enough “We Give A Dam” tee shirts to go around and I’ll be in touch with our winners to make arrangements to get them their shirts 🙂 Continue reading
Not yet folks. Close, but as the saying goes, no cigar. Our criteria for ice-out is when there’s no ice left along the shore line, at least not enough to interfere with a boat or canoe. There’s still a good amount of ice on the south shore on what used to the the Antogoni property as you can see in this picture at left. Below is a panorama photo I took showing the extent of the ice. There’s also ice remaining in some coves on the south shore but this is the biggest extent. I expect *maybe* the ice will be all gone sometime tomorrow. Time will tell.
It’s getting close folks. I got an email from David Hodsdon this morning saying that he saw 6 loons yesterday in a spot of open water at the point near his house. Compare the picture at left, taken just a few minutes before Noon today, with the one I posted yesterday! A lot of open water out there…
| Your name: | What day do you think the ice will be completely off Clary Lake? |
|---|---|
| Kathryn Ference | 03/22/21 |
| Alan Nicholas Decker | 03/25/21 |
| Kelley Doore | 03/25/21 |
| Bambi jones | 03/29/21 |
| Ronnie Spann | 04/01/21 |
| Des FitzGerald | 04/01/21 |
| Stephen Viti | 04/01/21 |
| Beverley Bowen | 04/01/21 |
| Andrea Antognoni | 04/01/21 |
| Malcolm Burson | 04/02/21 |
| Karen Stutzer | 04/02/21 |
| Carolyn Curtis | 04/02/21 |
| Leslie Gillette | 04/02/21 |
| George Fergusson | 04/03/21 |
| Tara Doe | 04/03/21 |
| Stan York | 04/04/21 |
| Ray Martin | 04/04/21 |
| Jack Holland | 04/04/21 |
| Donhogg | 04/04/21 |
| Jay Bridgforth | 04/06/21 |
| Stephen Viti | 04/06/21 |
| Steve Relyea | 04/07/21 |
| Gareth Bowen | 04/07/21 |
| Paul Devlin | 04/07/21 |
| Karren Briggs | 04/07/21 |
| Stephen Viti | 04/07/21 |
| Ellis Percy | 04/08/21 |
| Steve Cowles | 04/09/21 |
| Rich & Megan Luisi | 04/09/21 |
| Thurlow Crummett | 04/09/21 |
| Tom Lawton | 04/09/21 |
| David Knight | 04/10/21 |
| Dan Burns | 04/12/21 |
| Mark Doe | 04/13/21 |
| Richard Gallion | 04/14/21 |
| Linda Gallion | 04/15/21 |
Ice Out approaches and it’s now looking like it’ll go out sooner rather than later. The ice is getting decidedly darker and this morning there is an odd brown stain over a large area that is visible in the Clary_cam3 photo at left. This warm weather is really wreaking havoc with the ice! Below is a Clary_cam2 photo from this morning showing a good deal of open water right on shore, and a large open lead heading off towards the boat launch. Also, it wasn’t that long ago that a few of us adventuresome people were driving our cars around on the lake. Steven Giampetruzzi sent me this picture of him and his Scoobydoo parked out in front of his camp, and Clary_cam2 caught me cruising by the day before:
