02-22-2005, 08:54 PM
Frozen Fish...ermen [#ff3300]A Primer on Ice Fishing[/#ff3300]
I guess I'm getting boring in my old age. I didn't stay up until midnight on December 31 to welcome in the new millenium. In fact, I was asleep by 10:30pm. I made up for it, however, by being awake by 6:00am the next morning, well in time to watch the first sunrise of year 001.
Now you may wonder the purpose for such foolishness (or perhaps "insanity" is a better word). It wasn't for a love of sunrises. I enjoy them, but not that much. Rather, it was the opening day of Maine's ice fishing season. This is the day when I (and hundreds of others who share the same affliction) trudge out onto the frozen surface of some local lake in order to spend the day standing in slush with the wind whipping around our ears, watching little contraptions on the ice hoping that a little red flag will suddenly spring up.
Actually, this annual rite begins several days before January 1. On years (like this one) when the ice freezes early, the ice shanties began to appear on the lake around the 28th of December. For those who've never seen one, an ice shanty is a fancy name for an old shack, about eight foot square at the base. Every winter, whole villages of these shanties appear on lakes all across Canada and the northern U.S. They look much like the shanty towns in the slums of major third world cities, except that ice fishing shanties are significantly colder and less comfortable. Why anybody who has a nice warm home and a refridgerator full of food would choose to go spend a day freezing off various parts of their body in one of these, I don't know (though I suspect it has something to do with the store of beverages in the corner of the shanty).
On the eve of opening day, the augers get fired up: big drills attached to 3HP motors that are used to bore 8" diameter holes through 4" to 12" (or more) thick ice. Those who don't get their holes cut on the eve before, get up an extra thirty minutes earlier and get them cut on opening morning. (That's one of the reasons I took up ice fishing. With all of the power augers roaring, it's hard to sleep in late in a lakeside cabin anyway.)
The fishing is done with a device known as a tip-up. A tip-up (at least the basic variety) is a fancy name for three pieces of wood nailed together. One piece of wood holds a spool of fishing line submerged beneath the hole. (It's got to stay underwater or it will freeze.) The other two pieces form an X that fits over the hole preventing the spool from becoming a permanent fixture on the lake bottom. The bait (minnows, shiners, tadpoles) hangs anywhere between one foot below the ice and the lake bottom. The fish can take the bait and run with it, unwinding line from the spool as they go, but when they do it released a flag which pops up and signals the ice-fisherman that one is on.
So the day is spent standing around watching for these flags to pop up into the air, and then racing over to pull in a fish (or curse because it got away). In Maine, each fisherman is allowed five tip-ups. My dad and I share eight, and between us we caught four trouton opening morning, all within the first hour. The rest of the day was a futile battle to keep the wind from burying our tip-ups in drifting snow.
Well, that's not quite true. Actually, most of the day was spent inside the house of our neighbors Milt and Jane Mills, who throw one great annual new year's day party. From the warm comfort of their living room sofa, we can look out the window and see the fifteen or so tip-ups that the Mills kids put out, and many of our own. It's a lot warmer in there, not to mention the hot chili, fresh-baked ham, oyster stew, and a decadent variety of cookies. And we can watch all the other fisherman out on the lake standing around shivering. Did I say it was a foolish custom?
[signature]
I guess I'm getting boring in my old age. I didn't stay up until midnight on December 31 to welcome in the new millenium. In fact, I was asleep by 10:30pm. I made up for it, however, by being awake by 6:00am the next morning, well in time to watch the first sunrise of year 001.
Now you may wonder the purpose for such foolishness (or perhaps "insanity" is a better word). It wasn't for a love of sunrises. I enjoy them, but not that much. Rather, it was the opening day of Maine's ice fishing season. This is the day when I (and hundreds of others who share the same affliction) trudge out onto the frozen surface of some local lake in order to spend the day standing in slush with the wind whipping around our ears, watching little contraptions on the ice hoping that a little red flag will suddenly spring up.
Actually, this annual rite begins several days before January 1. On years (like this one) when the ice freezes early, the ice shanties began to appear on the lake around the 28th of December. For those who've never seen one, an ice shanty is a fancy name for an old shack, about eight foot square at the base. Every winter, whole villages of these shanties appear on lakes all across Canada and the northern U.S. They look much like the shanty towns in the slums of major third world cities, except that ice fishing shanties are significantly colder and less comfortable. Why anybody who has a nice warm home and a refridgerator full of food would choose to go spend a day freezing off various parts of their body in one of these, I don't know (though I suspect it has something to do with the store of beverages in the corner of the shanty).
On the eve of opening day, the augers get fired up: big drills attached to 3HP motors that are used to bore 8" diameter holes through 4" to 12" (or more) thick ice. Those who don't get their holes cut on the eve before, get up an extra thirty minutes earlier and get them cut on opening morning. (That's one of the reasons I took up ice fishing. With all of the power augers roaring, it's hard to sleep in late in a lakeside cabin anyway.)
The fishing is done with a device known as a tip-up. A tip-up (at least the basic variety) is a fancy name for three pieces of wood nailed together. One piece of wood holds a spool of fishing line submerged beneath the hole. (It's got to stay underwater or it will freeze.) The other two pieces form an X that fits over the hole preventing the spool from becoming a permanent fixture on the lake bottom. The bait (minnows, shiners, tadpoles) hangs anywhere between one foot below the ice and the lake bottom. The fish can take the bait and run with it, unwinding line from the spool as they go, but when they do it released a flag which pops up and signals the ice-fisherman that one is on.
So the day is spent standing around watching for these flags to pop up into the air, and then racing over to pull in a fish (or curse because it got away). In Maine, each fisherman is allowed five tip-ups. My dad and I share eight, and between us we caught four trouton opening morning, all within the first hour. The rest of the day was a futile battle to keep the wind from burying our tip-ups in drifting snow.
Well, that's not quite true. Actually, most of the day was spent inside the house of our neighbors Milt and Jane Mills, who throw one great annual new year's day party. From the warm comfort of their living room sofa, we can look out the window and see the fifteen or so tip-ups that the Mills kids put out, and many of our own. It's a lot warmer in there, not to mention the hot chili, fresh-baked ham, oyster stew, and a decadent variety of cookies. And we can watch all the other fisherman out on the lake standing around shivering. Did I say it was a foolish custom?
[signature]