Polar Dip participants prepare for leap into Sebago Lake

COUNTY ICE FISHING DERBY STILL ON

By Ed Pierce

Determined ice fishing enthusiasts will have to alter their plans some, but the Cumberland County Ice Fishing Derby remains on after officials canceled the Sebago Lake portion of the event because of unsafe ice conditions earlier this week.

Jason Abildgaard of Raymond Public Works uses a chain saw
to cut through the ice on Sebago Lake in preparation for
Saturday's Polar Dip event sponsored by the Sebago Lakes
Region Chamber of Commerce to raise money for area
food pantries. PHOTO BY ED PIERCE

With a Grand Prize of $5,000 available, the annual event, sponsored by the Sebago Lake Rotary Club, has grown through the years to become one of the most popular fishing derbies in Maine each winter. Milder temperatures this year have left Sebago Lake ice thinner than usual with the currently ice depth stands between just 4 and 6 inches.

With thousands expected to be out fishing on Sebago Lake this weekend, derby officials could not ensure participant safety and recommended fishermen and families find other nearby lakes with thicker ice as part of the Cumberland County Ice Fishing Derby.

One big event that will still take place on Sebago Lake on Saturday is the Polar Dip, sponsored by the Sebago Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce as a fundraiser for food pantries throughout the Lakes Region.

The Polar Dip currently has about 16 teams of jumpers confirmed for Saturday and about 35 people total lined up so far to dive into Sebago Lake. The jumpers will be diving into an 8- by 30-foot hole cut into the ice about 300 feet off Raymond Beach starting at noon Saturday.

George Bartlett, who heads up the staging for the Polar Dip every February, said that the lack of ice has moved the event closer to the shoreline this time.

“The temperature on Friday night is expected to get down to about 10 degrees,” Bartlett said. “If we are at about 4 inches right now, with the thermometer dropping that low, we could add as much as 2 more inches of ice by Saturday morning.”

Polar Dip participants receive pledges to brave the freezing lake waters and last year more than $10,000 was raised for “Feed the Need” which provides financial assistance for food pantries in Casco, Gray, Naples, New Gloucester, Raymond, Sebago, Standish and Windham.

The Cumberland County Ice Fishing Derby is in its 22nd year in 2023 and despite participants not being able to fish on Sebago Lake, the Rotary reminds everyone that there are more than 20 other lakes available in Cumberland County to fish on. The fishing derby runs Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 with hundreds of perch and pickerel fish pool prizes and community gift cards drawings up for grabs.

The Sebago Lake Rotary Club uses proceeds from the Ice Fishing Derby for charitable donations across the community throughout the year. 2023 Derby sweatshirts will be on sale this weekend at each of the weigh stations and fish collected will be sent for processing and donated to local food pantries.

Last year more than 800 participants tried their luck in fishing holes all over Sebago Lake and fishing ponds across Cumberland County. Fewer fish were caught in 2022 as fishermen mentioned the togue out of Sebago seemed to be thinner and fewer were biting.

But derby fishermen continued to donate much of what they were able to catch. Those donations were delivered to Nova Seafood in Portland for processing and then delivered to assist in feeding the homeless and those facing food insecurity.

According to Cyndy Bell of the Sebago Lake Rotary Club, the exact number and weight of fish donated from the derby was about 7,500 pounds of fish which was collected, flash-frozen and donated to food pantries in the Greater Portland area.

The credit for coming up with the idea for the annual Ice Fishing Derby is Tom Noonan, a Sebago Lake Rotary Club member, who proposed staging the contest in 2001 in cooperation with the Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department.

Since then, the event has grown substantially to become the Sebago Lake Rotary Club’s largest annual fundraising initiative and has supported hundreds of charities over the past two decades, with more than $1 million donated to local causes since its inception. The derby gained additional national notoriety as one of only four fishing derbies in the United States to be featured in a television program filmed for the National Geographic Channel that aired in June 2014.<