Those who don't ice fish have another think coming

By Ron Schara, Star Tribune

People who don't go ice fishing think they're not missing much.

They also think that staring at a hole in the ice can't be much fun for very long. But what do they know?

Sure, holes in the ice look pretty much the same, it's true. But people who don't ice fish also don't realize what devoted winter anglers think about when there's nothing happening in the ice hole, which is often the case.

People who don't ice fish tend to be wrong about a lot of things. For example, ice fishing is much more exciting than it appears. Sure, there are a few dull moments, but "Monday Night Football" has 'em, too.

Watching a still bobber gets old but so do most Tom Cruise movies.

Believe it or not, there are actually memorable moments in the sport of ice fishing.

You don't hear about 'em much because, unlike summer vacations where folks take a bunch of photographs of themselves acting foolish or holding up big fish, wintertime anglers aren't big on spending a week in an ice shack or taking snapshots of the fellas with their empty bottle of blackberry brandy.

Nevertheless, the memorable moments are for real.

My brother, Robert, still remembers the night his friend's pickup truck headed for the bottom of Lake Koronis with him in it. Thank goodness, Robert and his buddy both escaped unharmed.

Three months later, they also were reunited with the pickup. It was a little soggy but otherwise salvageable. They found the truck, thanks to one of those Aqua-Vu underwater cameras. Crappies were swimming around in the truck bed, Robert said.

He won't forget.

People who don't go ice fishing probably don't realize that fish are actually caught.

It's easy to make fun of winter anglers because of their reputation for having all-night parties in their ice shacks until everybody falls asleep with their Sorel boots still on.

The truth is, ice fishing has nothing to do with being a party animal.

It's really about catching something. Or trying.

Truly, there's a magic moment when one's bobber begins to sink. What fish awaits? What size? Such is the joy of angling, and it transcends all seasons.

I shall never forget a long sled dog ride into the BWCAW to reach Knife Lake within a snowball's toss of Dorothy Molter's historic island. We drilled a few holes and sunk a few cutbaits for lake trout and pinched small flags on lines and waited. Within mere minutes, a line and flag began to move into the hole like a ribbon snake. Fish on.

For two hours the line flags moved, and lake trout soon flopped on the ice.

When winter fishing follows the script, it's a memory.

Some ice anglers seem to have a sixth sense about where to drill the hole. A fella named Ivan Burandt has that talent. He's a Mille Lacs guide, winter or summer. One winter day, we tagged along with our television cameras as Ivan searched for a walleye bite. It was the middle of the day. Ivan dropped a jigging spoon, tipped with the head of a fathead minnow.

Thunk. Fish on. More memories.

The fraternity of ice anglers also has a winter guru, of sorts. He's a Minnesota fella by the name of Dave Genz. They say he's Mr. Ice Fisherman. And he is. He's invented a bunch of winter fishing stuff, Clam houses and the like. He's concocted lures, ice rods, you name it. It's a business now for Genz, but it wasn't always that way.

He got into ice fishing to start with because he ... well, loves it.

People who don't ice fish don't understand loving it.

One of my fondest memories is about an ice fisherman whose name I don't know. One day I noticed him, sitting alone on a 5-gallon bucket in the vastness of the Mille Lacs icescape. He was wrapped in a coonskin coat and, near as I could tell, he hadn't moved from his bucket for hours.

I couldn't stand it. How can any sane man sit still for that long, I wondered. Minutes later, I wandered over to the fella. He didn't look up until I was almost staring into the same ice hole that he was. I popped the question: How can you sit here so long?

"Well," he said, pausing. "as I look in the hole, I imagine I'm staring at a giant martini and my bobber's the olive."

People who don't ice fish probably don't like martinis.