Ice Fishing Saginaw Bay
Saginaw Bay Ice
Being a relatively shallow Bay off of Lake Huron, with depths within the inner Bay being mostly under 30', allows the Bay to freeze much faster than the Great Lakes, under the right conditions. While most winters MI sees the low temperatures required for the Bay to freeze, the wind is an extremely important factor. Not only does wave action from wind prohibit the formation of ice... wind can also destroy ice if it is not thick enough to withstand its force. Worst wind direction is from the south-west, as it has the potential to push the ice out of the Bay, towards Lake Huron.
Although the Bay features slowly sloping bottom contours, it does have a deep and shallow side. The West side of the Inner Bay is deeper than the East, which means the East side is usually first to freeze. The West side also has a sharper taper from shore to bottom, and water pushing up along the quickly shallowing bottom tends to form fractures (cracks) in the ice.
The white shading represents the deepest part of the Bay. The shorter the blue shading, the shorter the distance to deep water and hence the steeper the drop on bottom .
