I couldn’t believe what I was seeing through the small window of the ice shack. It was a bit puzzling at first, but after readjusting the focus on my binoculars, there it was again, then again.
After several minutes, I was sure of what was taking place in the shack just 100 yards away. I also couldn’t believe my luck, and was thankful to be watching this all from the warmth and comfort of my warden’s truck.
I had more than earned this moment of ease after dozens of freezing-cold surveillance hours from the wooded shorelines of Craigs Pond in Orland. The pond has fishing regulations that make it illegal to keep togue and allows only two ice fishing lines instead of the five on most bodies of water.
Information had filtered its way through the local ice fishing community to my ear several weeks earlier regarding this fisherman’s alleged practice of fishing too many lines and habitually keeping togue from this pond.
I was hoping to catch him on both violations but was willing to address either one given the chance. Watching him catch and keep a togue would have been the ultimate reward, but with light fading, I knew the fisherman would be leaving soon.
Besides, I had all I needed after witnessing a rhythmic routine of arm lifting, leaning forward, and pausing that was consistent with illegally jigging a third line inside the shack.
This wouldn’t be the first time the fisherman and I had met. Two other game wardens and I were on Toddy Pond last winter monitoring fishing activity during a derby. After spotting a shack with several traps scattered in front, and no one around, we decided to investigate.
It soon was clear that the lines were unattended. Eventually, a man returned and said that he and his friend, who owned the shack, had set the traps, but that his friend left nearly an hour earlier to make a trip to his residence.
The man’s friend was the fisherman I now had in my sights.
After a quick phone call, the fisherman returned and we gave him a summons for his unattended lines. After that, I inquired further with some trusted sources about the first man, and he quickly earned himself a spot on my must-watch list.
Unable to locate this fisherman in the area during the first part of ice fishing season, I was intrigued when his shack showed up on Craigs Pond, and I eagerly went to work. Soon, I received information that he had been bragging about keeping several togue from the far end of the pond in an area referred to as “the togue hole,” and had even entered one of the fish in a local fishing derby.
I tried hard to make a legal case from a picture of the fish I had received, which had been taken inside his shack, but I just couldn’t prove it had come from this pond.
Even more determined to catch him after the derby fish entry, I worked him every chance I got. I hiked, crawled and snowshoed around the pond to find the best spots to watch from, and spent hours sipping hot coffee from my thermos to keep warm and focused.
After several weeks, I still had nothing to show for my efforts, and was frustrated. I had all but given up hope when I decided to quickly check the landing after a mid-afternoon meeting, and was shocked to see the fisherman’s shack had moved to the small cove, just a short distance from shore.
Praying I hadn’t been seen, I tucked my truck neatly out of the way, where I started watching for activity around the shack. Finally I had him dead to rights.
With all of the confidence in the world, I grabbed my summons book and started off across the cove toward the shack. The fisherman opened the door when I was just a few feet away and stepped out.
Startled, he froze like a deer in the headlights.
I arrogantly smirked and asked him where his jig rod was. Shaking his head, the fisherman assured me he had not been jigging.
After letting him know I had been watching him for some time, I demanded he show me the jig rod, and the hole under his shack. Again, he said he had not been jigging, and that there was no hole under the shack.
I peeked under the shack and realized he was right. There was no hole.
It was then that I saw the rows of cards on the table, and realized the motions I had seen were that of the man playing Solitaire, not jigging.
Deservedly so, I felt like a complete idiot.
And when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, as we stood there talking, a flag popped up on one of the nearby traps.
After a short fight between man and fish, the fisherman pulled a 5-pound togue from the hole, cut the line, slid the fish into the water, and fired back his own arrogant smirk while happily exclaiming, “Can’t keep those here!”
