First Ice
By Tom Hayes
I
have been contributing articles to The Outdoorsmen for coming upon 2 years.
I think the biggest aggravation I have caused Brian and Roger is that it
is pretty hard to get a story out of me about ice fishing. They like to
have our contributions directed at some theme and along about January, ice
fishing is in vogue.
About once or twice a winter one friend or another convinces me that I should go along with them on a frozen foray. The trips are always a lot of fun and the companionship, excellent, but somehow ice fishing just does not trip my trigger.
This was not always the case, however. Back in the early 60’s my old pal, Charley took up an interest in ice fishing and I got into it with him. We fished exclusively on Deerfield and Pactola Lakes in the Black Hills. And, we started after deer season and the Holidays were over – like January – and carried on until early April when the ice got too rotten to get on and off the lakes.
Technology had not invaded the sport of ice fishing back then. Our outings were a very Spartan test of ones resolve and endurance. There were none of these namby-pamby icehouses, or gas powered augers. The idea of putting any kind of spinning or casting reel on some willowy little ultra light rod had not invaded our world, nor had propane fired catalytic heaters, gasoline powered generators running any manner or sort of electrical heaters, lights or appliances.
At the time of our excursions, there was a bridge across Castle Creek where it runs into Deerfield Lake that we liked to cross and drive along the shore to some semi-level spot to set up our camper. There were no improvements like tables or toilets or anything. It was just roughing it.
The campground on the south shore of the lake was right down next to the water and had nothing more than an outhouse with a door that flapped in the wind. To use the toilet meant digging out the snow enough to find the seat and holes and have at it. It was at that time of my youth that I learned the saying about a “well digger’s - - - in January,” and I knew first hand just how cold that was, despite the fact that I, myself, had never dug a well in my life.
Old Charley (who was not so old at that time) had a strategy that always worked. Since Deerfield would have about 3 feet of ice on it by January, and since all we had to poke fishing holes through it was a “spud bar,” it paid to have a strategy. The Charley Method was to go out on the ice around where prominent points went out into the lake. Then, if there had not been recent snow, he would wander around and try to locate holes that others had used recently. He also looked for fish guts around the area indicating that the previous owners of said holes might have caught something.
I was never quite sure how Charley decided how far out onto the lake to go, i.e., how deep of water to fish in. Of course we did not have a depth finder other than a big sinker on a string but I don’t recall every using it. Through some kind of dead reckoning, Charley would stop and sit his stuff down and pound two holes through the ice – as I said, on a good day they would be just opening up holes left by someone else. On a bad day, that was two holes beat through 3 or more feet of ice. He started the holes out big at the top so the sides could slope in and he would still have a 10” diameter hole at the bottom. After the first hole was cut he would set up his first ice stick – they were hardwood dowels with an ice pick-looking thing on the end and were spooled up with black casting line with about 8 feet of mono for leader, two hooks, some split shot, and baited with whole kernel corn and / or Pautzke’s Balls O Fire salmon eggs. Then, he would chop a second hole and rig another line.
Once settled, he would send my pal, Chris, and me off to entertain ourselves chopping our own holes. The rule was that we were not to get too close to where Charley was because he didn’t want us “scaring the fish,” now that he had lines in the water. Upon reflection, I think Charley’s “10-yard rule” had more to do with not being handy for all the shenanigans Chris and I went through in the course of a day than really worrying about scaring fish. I came upon this realization by observing that Charley would usually have a couple of trout laying on the ice by the time we had our holes chopped and that he got bites in his first hole, even while he was chopping his second hole not 5 feet from the first.
But it made no matter because if it weren’t for Charley, Chris and I would not have gotten to go at all – not ice fishing, not creek fishing, not water skiing, not anything. So we were content to fish wherever we were relegated. We always got trout, too. Charley always got more but it may have had something to do with him paying attention to his line and not running all over the frozen sheet throwing snow blocks, boot sliding and complaining that the fish had mysteriously stripped our bait without us even noticing.
We stood out there on the ice, in the wind, with no heaters or windbreaks or any other such trappings of weaklings. Along a about mid-morning, when the morning bite (for Charley) had slowed, he would “give us permission” to go up on the bank to get a big old pitch stump. Chris and I jumped at the chance to do anything besides stand there looking down a hole in the ice and watch Charley haul in fish.
Sometimes, the stumps were pretty big and also a long ways from the ice. We would struggle and eventually get a pitch root and a bunch of limbs dragged out on the ice by our fishing haven. Charley always made sure the stump was a good distance from his fishing spot, but not too far. Sometimes, depending on the wind, we got to have the stump pretty close to my and Chris’ holes. Then, Charley would poke around a bit, always cautioning us that, “If I get a bite, leave it alone! Just yell at me,” and get that pitch stump a blazing.
Oh, such comfort it was to get some heat. I may have been vaguely aware that geese have little bitty feathers next to their skins but don’t think I had ever heard the term, “goose down,” before, let alone associate it with anything that might offer warmth. Now, wool was something that did exist in our vocabulary, but I don’t think Chris or I had any. My old man had a pair of WWII surplus “flight pants” that, while 7 sizes too big, did do a pretty good job of keeping my legs warm ( a relative term). I do not recall what I might have had for a parka, but it couldn’t have been near enough.
Lunch would consist of Campbell’s soup that we would heat up undiluted right in the cans on the pitch stump fire. Usually Chris or I would get burned trying to move the cans around while heating, or if we escaped that peril, would no doubt scald our lips trying to drink / eat the soup from the can. Once in a while, we might bring hot dogs to cremate to go with the soup. Coffee or hot chocolate would have been a Godsend, but we never had any.
The best part of the whole deal was, that in spite of all the hardship and screwing around, we always had a big pan of trout to clean. I do not remember a time when we didn’t limit out or come close to it. We also just about had the lakes to ourselves as “nobody” went ice fishing. On a given weekend, no one else would be camping and only one or two groups would even be fishing on Deerfield. Pactola might have a few more groups but there was never any competition.
So, with pleasant memories of that history, I sometimes wonder why it is that I don’t get cranked up over ice fishing. Especially, now that the sport has so many conveniences like portable shelters, gas augers, Vexilars and underwater cameras, light tackle with foam bobbers and propane heaters.
Maybe it is because I can’t just build a pitch stump
fire on the ice anywhere, or pee anywhere because there are hundreds of
shanties and portables, or because I am not on Deerfield Lake with Charley
and Chris.
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