This photo shows ice cut in February 2014 by Herbert Fisheries when setting their nets on the south shore of George Island. This island forms the Killarney channel. While much of the Bay is ice covered you would not expect the ice to be 28 inches thick in an area exposed to the full 40 mile fetch of Georgian Bay where this block was cut.  Unprotected waters that are constantly moving and often never freeze. There certainly is a lot of deep ice on the Bay some years and those heavy ice years generally get a very late spring breakup. Photo & Info courtesy of Herbert Fisheries www.herbertfisheries.ca and Killarney Mountain Lodge www.killarney.com Thanks to Wye Heritage Marina that supplied these historic ice out dates on the Bay (below). The surprising thing is the variance. 2012 was the earliest ever recorded (March 22nd) since they started tracking in 1979. Latest was April 29th in 1992. So earliest to latest that's a whopping 39 days!!! The average lands in mid April. Notice any trends? You are more likely to see two years in a row that are closer together ice out date than further apart ... but not always. Warm summers apparently have no strong correlation to early ice out dates ... by example compare 2011 & 2012, both hot dry summers with ice out dates 20 days apart. Late ice out dates have no correlation to higher water levels - go figure! Mother nature is tricky and hard to figure out. 1979 April 3rd 1980 April 8th 1981 April 2nd 1982 April 20th 1983 April 13th 1984 April 6th 1985 April 8th 1986 April 15th 1987 April 16th 1988 April 18th 1989 April 26th 1990 April 20th 1991 April 7th 1992 April 29th 1993 April 26th 1994 April 19th 1995 April 12th 1996 April 20th 1997 April 27th 1998 April 3rd 1999 April 6th 2000 March 25th 2001 April 19th 2002 April 12th 2003 April 21st 2004 April 16th 2005 April 20th 2006 April 12th 2007 April 22nd 2008 April 19th 2009 April 11th 2010 April 4th 2011 April 11th 2012 March 22nd 2013 April 18th 2014 April 30th 2015 April 19th 2016 April 1st