Mercury warning: Unacceptable levels are showing up in fish caught in certain waterways.

DRIVING street-type motor vehicles on the ice has been a tradition in the Granite State for all of my life, but it's time this changed.

In the past, vehicles ranging from huge motor homes to little sedans have sunk through the ice on our big lakes. To date, the good Lord has looked kindly on the occupants, there being no loss of life or injuries. With this year's especially difficult ice conditions, it may be a matter of time before the thin ice claims a victim or two, and these are tragedies that just don't have to happen.

This old fool used to be one of the worst offenders of this questionable conduct, using health reasons to justify driving on the ice. But what's more dangerous to your health, taking an unplanned dip in the frigid lake or having to endure a little walk on the windy side?

Wouldn't it be too bad if we have to regulate against such foolishness? Because there are times when it's pretty safe to drive on the ice. It's also an infringement on a person's pursuits to regulate against it. So what's a person to do? I guess it's a matter of using the old bean and common sense. It would also be a great idea if the Safety Services Division would put up warning signs both at lake accesses and out on the lake when there is danger for vehicle travel. I'm going to stick to my personal commitment not to take street-type vehicles out on the ice, whatever the conditions.

Speaking of posting of lakes, we recently read an article by former Fish and Game biologist Eric Orff (current Fish and Game commissioner) about samples of mercury in our freshwater fish being the highest ever recorded in the United States. As a strange coincidence and some extreme good luck for my family, my grandson Nate was at that very moment catching some crappie from one of the waters that Orff had mentioned, fish that he'd planned on giving to Jane and me.

When Nate showed up with a five-gallon bucket half full of the largest crappie we've ever seen, it was not easy to tell Nate those fish were poison. Nate disposed of the fish and also alerted other people who had been fishing this same body of water.

We're not going to identify any of these lakes and ponds that are heavily laden with mercury but Orff pretty much had it covered when he said that all the water bodies that were downwind of the Bow power plant have unacceptable levels of mercury. We feel that someone should have and should now post all of these waters as being dangerous to human health if fish caught there are eaten.

Too many salmon are being taken through the ice and illegally kept, being mistaken for brown trout, which are legal to take. We have seen two examples of this, once on Conway Lake and the other time at Big Dan Hole Pond.

Folks, there really is no good reason for this to happen. In the fishing rule booklet there's a picture of how to identify each fish, and if you're in doubt, you'd better err on the safe side and let the fish go unharmed. There are only a handful of lakes where there are any numbers of browns mixed in with the salmon. If you fish one of these, the burden is on you to be an expert if you plan to take brown trout.

In our current fishing rules regulations, there is an illustration that shows how to make a definite identification of trout or salmon by checking out the fish's mouth. The roof of both species has a row of teeth with the brown trout being way more pronounced than the salmon's. Check it out!

Contact Dick Pinney at DoDuckInn@aol.com.