ICE FISHING

ANOTHER FOGGY, BELOW ZERO MORNING

ICE FISHING TENT NEAR THE FERRY DOCK

Friday, 8:30 AM.  -3 degrees F on the back porch.  Wind WNW, gusty.  The sky is overcast, it is snowing lightly, fine crystalline flakes.  It is very foggy, with blowing and drifting snow.  We haven't ventured out yet but will have to bundle up and get Buddy out forthwith.
   The Bayfield to La Pointe ferries have stopped running until spring, and the ice fishermen are now quickly taking their place.  The ice fishing tent pictured above was up on Wednesday, the same day the ferry quit.
   I don't ice fish, as it has become too complex and expensive an activity for me.  Every  Big Lake ice fisherman today has a snowmobile or an ATV (or both), a motorized auger, an appropriate tent with heater, specialized clothing, and most inexplicable of all to me, an immersible TV camera to record the fish, if any, as they approach the hook, and a monitor to watch the action or lack thereof.  The tent has to be dark to watch the TV screen.  A sled is needed to haul all the stuff. Add it all up and the cost for equipment is many thousands of dollars, and the biggest allure for many seems to be to see how far out among the Islands they can go and still get back alive.  I guess I am a cheapskate, and just not that adventuresome.
   When I ice fished with my father as a youngster we had an ice chopping bar, some tip-ups and a couple of buckets to sit on that could also be used to put our lunch and the fish in, all carried on my sled that I pulled along behind us.  But that was long, long ago, and not on the Big Lake where there might be three feet of ice to chop.

       ICE FISHING

   When Ice Fishermen fish,
   Do they mostly catch ice?
   A trout or a salmon,
   Now that would be nice

   But the fish that I wish,
   The one that I'd take
   Is the lowly whitefish,
   The best in the Lake
                        Art Ode