We were the die-hards, ice fishing until they called us in for dinner. It was snowing hard and 20 degrees on Gull Lake the day before the local 10,000-person annual Ice Fishing Extravaganza.
We were sampling the ice and trying to sample the fish, but the fish were not being very neighborly.
I joined Bruce Olson and Matt Shaw from Geneva inside a sophisticated multi-room, synthetic fabric fishing shack, complete with heater that shielded us from the elements.
A few others hung around, then after catching just a single perch in an hour of fishing, went for walks and never returned. We were not willing to cave in so quickly.
“I’m having fun no matter what,” Olson said.
Our minnows dangled in the frigid water and we watched them wiggle several feet down on our very own TV screen of sorts, an Aqua Vu underwater camera. Here came a fish. Or not. Another?
Nope.
It was the bait on the screen and nothing else.
“There’s a fish taking the bait!” Shaw announced. “The perch are in.”
Well, it was apparently a hallucination. No fish hit and if the perch were in they weren’t bothering anybody.
“Too bad we can’t hook up a VCR to the Aqua Vu so we can watch our catch,” Shaw said.
What catch would that be? We were prowling for walleye, the prime fish in this large lake, but the action was slow. Outside, others milled around, trying their luck at a myriad of freshly drilled holes.
Karl Kleman, a Brainerd area ice-fishing pro, said he likes to cut as many as 30 holes in a “C” pattern, “depending if I’m somewhat in touch with where a fish would be.”
While many fishermen scope out what they consider a first-rate spot and erect a shanty for protection from the elements, Kleman said he likes to operate on the move.
“Fishing in portable fish houses and being able to react quickly maximizes things for me,” he said. “I keep everything light and portable.”
Has this mobility paid off?
“Many times,” Kleman said.
Hard work, however, still can be a difference-maker.
“There’s a lot of days I’ll drill 100 holes,” Kleman said.
One ice fisherman showed off his snowmobile fishing rig. Brian Rosdahl of Castle Lake, Minn., has rod holders attached to the sides of his snowmobile, is able to ride sidesaddle and fish and has an augur mounted on the rear of his machine much like a gun rack in use on the back of a pickup truck.
“This allows me to cover ground,” Rosdahl said.
Rosdahl’s method is akin to following a trap line.
He drills holes and moves from hole to hole, drops an underwater camera to see if fish are swimming about and then keeps right on rolling if he doesn’t see any.
Because they sit in one place for hours, it is often said fishermen are patient. Rosdahl doesn’t subscribe to that approach.
Olson, who works for the state of Illinois, said he became an ice-fishing disciple late.
“I figured, `It’s cold, why would you do it?'” he said. “Then I tried it. It’s fun. It’s the only fishing game in town in January.”
We fished and fished and fished, but attracted no walleye and no perch. As the sky dimmed and the end of our afternoon on the ice loomed, Shaw said, “It seems like a strong word about now is appropriate.” He kept his language pretty clean.
Just a little while longer, we thought, and surely we would have a breakthrough.
“On the other hand, am I a wishful-thinking fisherman?” Olson said.
“Aren’t we all?” I commented.
We put up the poles and bait and called it a day.
“It’s a no-hitter,” Shaw said.
