BY LARRY GRARD

Staff Writer

Check locally. Bob Meyers, executive director of the Maine Snowmobile Association, said he can't underscore that too much. Before going ice fishing or taking a snowmobile onto any body of water, Meyers said, ask the locals if it's safe.

"Maybe some places are frozen enough, but it's always a good idea to check the local snowmobile club, or the local gas stations," Meyers said. "Even under the best of circumstances, we tell people to check locally before they go out."

Traversing an ice-covered lake too soon, or in a thaw, can be fatal.

Although ice-fishing season started Thursday, most observers in central Maine say that ice conditions are not yet safe.

In the upper Kennebec Valley, following the recent cold weather, it's just beginning to freeze solid.

"There isn't a lot of snow cover, so the ice is going to form quickly," said Joe Christopher, who runs Down by the River and Three Rivers lodges in The Forks.

Christopher is in close contact with the Northern Outdoors Snowmobile Club, which features a daily report of conditions on its Web site. He said that Indian Pond had an 8-inch cover, and Wyman Lake was close to that in midweek.

"There's current in both of those lakes, so you have to be careful of where you choose," Christopher said.

Christopher added that Pleasant Pond is deep, and always the last to freeze over.

The colder weather of the last week of 2008 has made a difference, but as of midweek, conditions on Sebasticook Lake were not nearly ready to support sleds or ice shacks, said Bob Creighton, president of the Sebasticook Valley Snowmobile Club. Creighton said that some of the dead water on the pond side of the lake, off Durham Bridge, was freezing over.

"But on the main lake itself, it's nothing that I would want to go across," Creighton said. "We got a little snow over it when we shouldn't have, and that kept it from freezing good."

Sebasticook Lake, the focal point of the Pine Tree Camp Snowmobile Ride-In on Feb. 6-7, would need 10 to 12 days of cold weather to be ready for sleds, Creighton said Tuesday.

On China Lake, the causeway was still running open as of midweek.

"The lake conditions aren't very good right now," said Doug Tibbetts of the China Four Seasons club. "We're not grooming yet."

Tibbetts said that the west basin of the lake near Vassalboro and the causeway are the last to freeze. The boat landing in South China hardens first, he said.

He agreed with Creighton that the timing of the mid-December snow was not suitable for ice formation.

"We got a couple of days of cold and a couple of days of warm, and any snow that's on there makes it that much harder to freeze," Tibbetts said. "I think we're probably two weeks behind last year, as far as ice conditions."

Jason Leavitt, a member of the Northern Lites Snowmobile Club in Industry, said he has seen people walking on Porter Lake in New Vineyard, but Leavitt said he hasn't seen ice shacks yet.

"If they get the ice shacks out there, they usually take their snowmobiles out, too," Leavitt said. "A lot of the brooks and streams are still open."

Larry Grard -- 861-9239

lgrard@centralmaine.com