Ice fishing? Why would you want to do that?
The north wind comes blowing across a frozen Maine lake and bites into your cheeks. You are cold most of the time. Frozen fingers are your reward for baiting and rebaiting hooks. You finally get a promising ice hole going and, before long, it skims over again. The fishing can be ponderous and slow or, as more than one ice fishing cynic has observed, “It’s really exciting if you enjoy watching paint dry.”
So why do we do it?
I can’t speak for you, but I have my reasons. Ice fishing has a gambling facet to it — an outdoor roll of the dice. You lose more than you win. But like a good day at the tables in Las Vegas, when Lady Luck finally tilts your way, it can be truly memorable.
My sons and I recently made a five-day ice fishing foray to a northern Maine lake known to give up quality fish when the conditions are just right. Joining us was my neighbor Rick Maltz, who lives near me at Branch Lake, where I rarely ice fish.
Rick is an urban New Yorker by birth. The retired banker has embraced Maine’s outdoor life with enthusiasm — deer hunting, hiking and bass fishing. His ice fishing experience, however, had mostly been limited to Branch Lake, where the “watching paint dry” analogy can sometimes apply.
On this particular trip, the fishing gods favored us.
Five straight days of sunshine and light winds in February — in Maine, no less. And the fishing? About as good as it gets.
The lake, which will remain unnamed, holds salmon, splake, brook trout, white perch and plenty of snaggle-toothed pickerel. Our tip-ups were springing regularly, and half the fun was guessing which species was unwinding the spool each time a flag popped. I cannot recall the fishing there ever being better.
Rick was fired up.
He iced a couple of fat salmon to take home to his wife, Kelly, and stood there grinning.
“Boy,” he said, “this is some different than ice fishing Branch Lake.”
My boys and I took special pleasure in sharing that week with a fellow like Rick — someone who pulls his share of the load, filling the wood box at camp and chopping ice holes, but also knows his way around a cribbage board and enjoys hot dogs and onions on the ice.
He never did ask the question I expected:
“Is the action always this good here?”
I would have told him the truth.
“No sir, it isn’t.”
In more than half a century of ice fishing that particular water, I have no memory of five days when the weather, the fishing and the fellowship all came together quite like that. Most winters, at least one of those ingredients is missing.
And that, perhaps, answers the question.
Why would anyone sit on a frozen lake fishing all day?
Because every once in a while, the ice rewards your patience in a way that makes all the cold, slow days worthwhile.
