Ice fishing: The shortest season ever
Season is a word that鈥檚 used in all kinds of ways. We just endured the merciful end of a disappointing football season. Deer season always feels too short. The construction season is generally considered as all but the winter months, and the unloved tax season is looming ahead. It won鈥檛 be long until the TV talking heads are talking about another election season and, more uplifting, the seed catalogs crammed in my mailbox hint that the growing season is on the horizon.
But the shortest season of all 鈥� at least around here 鈥� is ice-fishing season.
For clarity, I should emphasize that there is no clear-cut and legally established ice-fishing season, not in the way that trout season, for example, always begins on a mid-April Saturday and runs to Labor Day (not counting the extended season). Or that bear season (in this state) always occupies three or four days immediately preceding Thanksgiving. Ice-fishing 鈥渟eason鈥� is all a product of fickle weather and a fisherman鈥檚 own acceptance of or aversion to risk. You ice-fish when natural conditions permit, and when your own survival instincts allow you to venture onto a crust of water in its solid form.
My friend Ron and I enjoy ice-fishing but, admittedly, our aversion to risk is robust鈥搘hich tends to make ice-fishing 鈥渟eason鈥� even shorter. We also are not necessarily eager to fish in -40 wind-chill. So, this year, we waited out the polar vortex, confident that ice was thickening through that whole last week of January and we鈥檇 enjoy a long 鈥渟eason鈥� ahead. The near-term forecast looked like Groundhog Day 鈥� Feb. 2 鈥� offered the ideal ice-fishing environment鈥揳 moderate, calm day after a week of brutal cold. We went for it.
And Groundhog Day did not disappoint 鈥� at least on that day. That prophetic rodent鈥檚 prediction of imminent spring is cursed by ice-anglers, but Groundhog Day itself was a classic. The wind was calm and by late morning we were so comfortable sitting on 5-gallon buckets at mid-lake that we shed coats and gloves. As our modest mid-winter suntans deepened, we wondered if non-ice-fishermen would believe how beach-like it can be on a frozen lake.
Regular readers may recall our struggles to drill fishing holes last year with my hand-powered auger. Ron and I are both, to put it politically correctly, seniors, and in last year鈥檚 slightly longer ice-fishing season we wore ourselves out cranking the drill down to liquid water. Ron decided he鈥檇 had enough of such nonsense and invested in a new gasoline-powered auger. I鈥檝e sometimes criticized the growing dependence on high-tech gear in the outdoors, but not in this context. All we did was hit the trigger and that power-auger cut through eight inches of ice so fast and with such ease that we were fishing in minutes. We got started fishing so quickly, and the fish were biting so eagerly that we only drilled six holes.
We were fishing tiny jigs tipped with a waxworm, mealworm or maggot, dropped until the line went slack and then cranked back up just enough to suspend the bait off the bottom. Most times, before we could set the rod and deploy another bait, our spring-bobbers danced, and we had to reel up a slab bluegill or risk losing one of our stubby poles being pulled through the hole.
I acknowledge that bluegills are not a glamorous game fish, and that one as big as your hand is the exception. But for a short ice-fishing season, they鈥檙e enough fish for us. And besides, they are gourmet-good when filleted and fried golden-brown in cornmeal spiced with a little cayenne pepper.
We quit fishing early to allow enough time to fillet the fish, then drove home on a dirt-road detour that often affords the chance to see deer. The sun was thinning the snow on south-facing slopes and the deer were out pawing at grass. Within a curvy quarter-mile we saw 30 or so deer close to the road. They gawked at us, unconcerned, then resumed pawing the melting snow. We both agreed it was a pretty good day outdoors.
Looking back, I now appreciate just how good it was. The temperature flirted with 70 a couple days later and it poured warm rain much of the next week. Now, as we near mid-February the prospects for more ice-fishing look statistically dim. This may have been our shortest ice-fishing season ever.
So, unless we get a late polar vortex, I calculate those six holes cost Ron about $50 apiece. That would buy a lot of tilapia.
Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.