We were on the ice by 6:30, loaded for bear with tip-ups, axes, augers, bait fish, cooking implements and the likes, the three of us heading out across a virgin snowpack on a lake that seemed to spread out forever. Crunch, crunch, crunch our footsteps echoed off the hardwood shoreline. A day camp was struck on the south side of a small peninsula, sheltered from a light but steady northerly breeze. Somebody set to work on a fire and a coffee pot while the others turned their full attention to the ice.
The auger hadn’t run since last February and it took a few good sprays of ether to get the varnish pulsing through the carburetor. Then, the deep gargling sound of the engine. In a minute or so 18 inches of ice was ground to a perfect circle. (While I hate to sully an otherwise serene scene by describing the buzz of an internal combustion engine, I’ve got to report that the sound of a power auger is that of divine progress and angels singing to someone who spent their formative years hacking hundreds of holes through bunker-thick ice with a spud bar).
Soon 24 black holes gaped strangely in that flat expanse of white ice, staring up like recessed fish eyes. A lucky 30-06 casing was sunk to determine the depth of the water – about 10 feet. The water pulsed slightly in the holes, giving the sub-aquatic world an eerie feel. A minnow dragging a fishing line swam bravely into the onyx depths, a little silver star shining, shining, and then dissolving into black.
There are ice fishing days that are marked by the slow crawl of time, days that feature a heavy food and drink element, days passed in long-winded stories, days without fish. This was not one of those days. Half a dozen jacks in and the whip of a tip-up was audible against the morning stillness. “Flag!” was bellowed with enough force that the very sky was served notice. Three men rushing with abandon to the swaying mark, knees high through the snow.
The fish was running and the tip-up’s tin reel spun like a windmill, clacking manically against the trip wire. In some dark underwater place a fat largemouth bass felt her meal tighten against her lip. After a valiant fight, she found herself flopping in an alien world, uninhabitable and blinding white. Some yahoos whooped and hollered and held her briefly by the lip, then, as quickly as the ordeal came, it was over. She swam away fast, then, presumably, kept swimming. If she’d possessed a human brain, she probably would have eventually convinced herself that the whole thing was some strange dream.
It would be a 30-fish day. At times, five or six jacks lay simultaneously on the ice, the action so fast we didn’t have time to re-bait. That first bass was a good one – probably close to four pounds, and we took several chain pickerel girthy enough to have passed for northern pike. We released all but four large perch, whose sweet white meat would later flake delicately after being seared with salt pork, baked with lemon and basil, then drizzled with a balsamic glace.
That evening a hot shower, fresh flannels, and a woodstove removed the final remnants of cold from my bones. There was low light, a hot beverage, and the soft sound of a football game on the radio. It all felt wonderfully complete.
Discussion *