02-22-2008, 06:10 PM
In 1676, Isaac Walton and his fishing friend Charles Cotton published the fifth edition of Walton's book, "The Complete Angler; or, Contemplative Man's Recreation."
Those guys contemplated about angling for grayling and trout in the summer on clear streams in England. They were handicapped by primitive tackle. They didn't contemplate ice fishing.
Isaac Walton lived to be 90 years old and he had at least 40 years of leisure time to contemplate fishing. Had he gone ice fishing, he would have had more time to contemplate when fishing.
Contemplate the many handicaps we enjoy when ice fishing. Consider that fish don't feed much in winter and spend most of their time doing nothing.
Consider the volume of a lake. A fish's viewing distance under water is a few feet when it's dark down there with ice and snow on top. Wisconsin anglers can fish from three holes at once, so with three lines, anglers can present something visible to fish in only about 340 cubic feet of lake volume at once.
It's hard to troll when ice fishing. When the ice is fairly thin, a sharp hand-cranked ice auger is fast. Then it's easy to turn the lake to Swiss cheese and move around, trying fishing in a series of holes. As the ice gets thicker, making many holes, even with a power auger, is a good bit of work. In contrast, during the summer it's easy to cast 30 yards again and again. With a longer under water viewing distance of about 5 feet during the summer, a lure or bait is presented to fish through more than 7,000 cubic feet of lake volume in a single cast.
Cold and wind further handicap ice fishing in winter. It's a struggle to keep holes clear of ice and snow. Ice freezing on the line and on the guides of the ice fishing rod has to be removed. There's the need to keep yourself warm by bundling up or by taking shelter in an ice house. Restricting your fishing to a shelter further handicaps your ability to move around.
Darkness is another handicap when ice fishing. It seems that crappies and walleyes often bite best just before sunrise or at sunset and for several hours thereafter. I recall a number of times when the crappies were biting around 7 p.m. when the temperature was falling precipitously and the wind was picking up. It's hard to tend more than one line at a time under those conditions. It's best to keep your hot gas lantern upwind of the hole so you don't burn the line in two.
Some intrepid ice fishermen travel 675 miles round trip from our neighborhood to Waskish on Upper Red Lake in northern Minnesota to fish for crappies the size of dinner plates and the increasingly abundant walleyes.
Gary Barnard, Minnesota DNR fisheries manager at Bemidji, said that the big Red Lakes crappies are all from the 1995 year class. They have topped out their growth at 12.5 to 13.5 inches total length and although the remaining ones are getting fatter, they are declining in numbers.
There's been a good recovery of walleyes since the moratorium on walleye fishing in the Red Lakes. Now there are at least 5 year classes of naturally-reproduced walleyes, with many 20- to 22-inch long fish in the no-keep size slot.
My coworker Dan Kelner and some friends went to Upper Red Lake a couple of weekends ago. They rented a heated ice house for $225 a night (drive out onto the lake yourself, bring your own sleeping bag, food, beverages, fishing tackle and bait). Their main handicap on that trip was minus-22 degrees Fahrenheit air temperature with a 40 mile-per-hour wind on Saturday night and Sunday. Dan said that once an hour somebody would say that it was about time for a bite. They kept a nice northern and some walleyes under the 17- to 26-inch slot length limit. Their holes froze over inside the ice house. The brutally cold wind made deep snow drifts on the lake. They had to wait to get plowed out and they had to jump-start their trucks to leave.
Last Thursday I picked up my friends Bill Smith and Dwight Nelson of River Falls at the Minneapolis airport, returning from a successful and action-packed salt-water fishing trip to Costa Rica. They caught big sailfish and colorful dorados. I mentioned the ice fishing conditions on Upper Red Lake.
Contemplating ice fishing, Bill said, "I can catch all the ice I want in my refrigerator!"
Please send any comments and suggestions for this column to me at wildside@rivertowns.net.
Those guys contemplated about angling for grayling and trout in the summer on clear streams in England. They were handicapped by primitive tackle. They didn't contemplate ice fishing.
Isaac Walton lived to be 90 years old and he had at least 40 years of leisure time to contemplate fishing. Had he gone ice fishing, he would have had more time to contemplate when fishing.
Contemplate the many handicaps we enjoy when ice fishing. Consider that fish don't feed much in winter and spend most of their time doing nothing.
Consider the volume of a lake. A fish's viewing distance under water is a few feet when it's dark down there with ice and snow on top. Wisconsin anglers can fish from three holes at once, so with three lines, anglers can present something visible to fish in only about 340 cubic feet of lake volume at once.
It's hard to troll when ice fishing. When the ice is fairly thin, a sharp hand-cranked ice auger is fast. Then it's easy to turn the lake to Swiss cheese and move around, trying fishing in a series of holes. As the ice gets thicker, making many holes, even with a power auger, is a good bit of work. In contrast, during the summer it's easy to cast 30 yards again and again. With a longer under water viewing distance of about 5 feet during the summer, a lure or bait is presented to fish through more than 7,000 cubic feet of lake volume in a single cast.
Cold and wind further handicap ice fishing in winter. It's a struggle to keep holes clear of ice and snow. Ice freezing on the line and on the guides of the ice fishing rod has to be removed. There's the need to keep yourself warm by bundling up or by taking shelter in an ice house. Restricting your fishing to a shelter further handicaps your ability to move around.
Darkness is another handicap when ice fishing. It seems that crappies and walleyes often bite best just before sunrise or at sunset and for several hours thereafter. I recall a number of times when the crappies were biting around 7 p.m. when the temperature was falling precipitously and the wind was picking up. It's hard to tend more than one line at a time under those conditions. It's best to keep your hot gas lantern upwind of the hole so you don't burn the line in two.
Some intrepid ice fishermen travel 675 miles round trip from our neighborhood to Waskish on Upper Red Lake in northern Minnesota to fish for crappies the size of dinner plates and the increasingly abundant walleyes.
Gary Barnard, Minnesota DNR fisheries manager at Bemidji, said that the big Red Lakes crappies are all from the 1995 year class. They have topped out their growth at 12.5 to 13.5 inches total length and although the remaining ones are getting fatter, they are declining in numbers.
There's been a good recovery of walleyes since the moratorium on walleye fishing in the Red Lakes. Now there are at least 5 year classes of naturally-reproduced walleyes, with many 20- to 22-inch long fish in the no-keep size slot.
My coworker Dan Kelner and some friends went to Upper Red Lake a couple of weekends ago. They rented a heated ice house for $225 a night (drive out onto the lake yourself, bring your own sleeping bag, food, beverages, fishing tackle and bait). Their main handicap on that trip was minus-22 degrees Fahrenheit air temperature with a 40 mile-per-hour wind on Saturday night and Sunday. Dan said that once an hour somebody would say that it was about time for a bite. They kept a nice northern and some walleyes under the 17- to 26-inch slot length limit. Their holes froze over inside the ice house. The brutally cold wind made deep snow drifts on the lake. They had to wait to get plowed out and they had to jump-start their trucks to leave.
Last Thursday I picked up my friends Bill Smith and Dwight Nelson of River Falls at the Minneapolis airport, returning from a successful and action-packed salt-water fishing trip to Costa Rica. They caught big sailfish and colorful dorados. I mentioned the ice fishing conditions on Upper Red Lake.
Contemplating ice fishing, Bill said, "I can catch all the ice I want in my refrigerator!"
Please send any comments and suggestions for this column to me at wildside@rivertowns.net.