Jan 18th and 19th ice fishing roport [Archive]

Ty Sennett

01-21-2013, 05:34 PM

I had some friends up for Deerfoot's first annual ice fishing tournament. We had a blast and caught some decent fish. Overall it was pretty tough and we had to move around a lot. We didn't catch any over 12 inches but a lot of 10 1/2 to 12 inchers. We caught more on waxworms than plastics which tells me they were pretty inactive. Right before the winds started really whipping good on Saturday we were getting fish pretty fast and furious but we couldn't even fish where the fish were at and moving the big shack at that point was not happening. Our popup ice shacks would have turned into kites at that point. Man was it nasty out. We ended up leaving a snowmobile and a four wheeler sitting at Deerfoot for the night because they froze up. I think it's supposed to get to 20 below zero tonight here. Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

RobertTB

01-21-2013, 08:40 PM

Groovy, sounds like a lot of fun ! But, -20 doesn't sound fun. I recall one year, Steve and Wayne and I were up snowmobiling, staying at Denny's there..DunRovin..you know. Musta' been in the late 70's or early 80's. We were all foosball maniacs at the time. Well, Denny, he was a foosball freak too and it was kinda' slow up there. It got like record cold that year, heard LP and natural gas was even freezing. (Now, I don't know about the real truth of that, but it was so damn cold it seemed plausable.) Sleds wouldn't fire up, vehicles wouldn't start, except for the one pickup that we had an oil dipstick heater in and a battery charger on. It was cold.

One night, we just HAD to walk down to the lodge to play foosball. Denny, he was a good foosball player, but he wasn't quite as good as Steve or me on those few days and it chaffed his hide when we defeated him. I digress. This one night, we had to walk a hundred yards or so from our room to the lodge. Best I recall, the weather dudes said it was 57 below, no wind chill. That's the coldest I have ever experienced, ya' HAD to cover your face and nose to even breathe. It was brutal cold, I thought. We walked as fast as we could. Denny was a good dude and we had a lot of fun with him.

Speaking of winds and portable ice huts: one year down here on my local lake, it was just plain ice with zero snow on it. I had built this ice shanty kinda' like Genz's clam deal, you know. I had it on wood runners, a plywood floor and I fashioned up metal conduit for the frame and had this custom canvas place sew on the fabric. Worked great, except it was kinda' heavy, but in my youth that didn't bother me too much. Well...this one day, I just HAD to go ice fishin', even though it was quite breezy. I went out with the wind, located a deep tree and drilled a couple holes. I pulled the shanty into place, folded it up and was getting my gear ready. Then the hut commenced to sliding along that real smooth ice, me inside, sitting. I knew that down wind of me were some trees sticking up out of the ice, so my mind was calculating how long it'd be before the hut met the trees. The wind even turned the hut some so it slid with he direction of the runners built underneath and gained a bit of speed, me sittin' there in the dark, going sideways. To my understated joy, the sled/hut did stop and I wasted NO time in bailing out and folding that sail down. It really sucked trying to drag that apparatus back against the wind, but I had a bit of adrenalin in my favor. I quit ice fishin' for the day, got in my pickup and thanked the Lord.

I got this one pair of really gnarley ice cleats for my boots and I fabricated up this anchor type deal that I...uhh..anchored to the ice shack. It required I drill an additional hole every time I moved the hut, but hey, it sure gave me a great deal of peace of mind. Experience can be an excellent teacher, at times, fez: Don't try the portable hut when it's too windy, unless you crave a thrill.