One of the reasons I have remained so ignorant of so many of the things going on around me is that I spend so much of my time staring up in the sky or peering down trying to make out what's going on in the water.
It was a natural thing that I should take to ice fishing; it's one of the most perfect outdoor pastimes for a born loafer. Where else can you spend most of your time rotating your carcass around a good fire, scorching and steaming in turn, and looking down through a hole watching for fish and still look busy?
Besides the active loafing, ice fishing had a lot going for it. First there was the discussing stage that covered where, weather and the general preparation. The next step was to put the chains on the Model A. That was one of my jobs because, for reasons I don't remember, one rear tire was a little larger than the other--so if the first set of chains went on relatively easy you knew you had the wrong chain on the wrong wheel. A really successful job of getting chains on always left you wet, frozen and with bleeding fingers--there was a lot of satisfaction in that job I can assure you; when it was finished you felt and looked like you'd been doing something!
The second phase was going out to look for bait. We were particular about getting the right kind of shiners and getting the right size. Most people used saltwater killies, but we felt that they weren't big enough, lively enough or hardy enough. It had to be fresh-caught local shiners. And you had to go looking for them. We had a telephone of sorts, but it didn't matter much whether it worked or not since almost no one else had one anyway. We'd go out driving around and buy six or eight here and maybe a dozen someplace else--each and every one discussed and handpicked. I know it sounds crazy, but I had "pet" shiners that I wouldn't let anyone else use. They just looked better to me.
Pop always scorned store tip-ups as extravagant and impractical and inefficient. Instead, we cut sticks of lakeside willow or alder about two feet long, made a little slit under the bark, and after sounding the water, slipped the line under the slit, so the shiner would be as deep as we wanted it, and tied a little piece of red rag in the line below the slit. When a fish took the bait the red flag simply disappeared, and we knew we had a bite. Further, if it simply got too cold or we stayed out on the lake too long we just left the sticks in the ice.
Every so often I got fancy and would make a few tip-ups out of lattice board and old corset stays, but I really liked the little willow sticks a lot more. I don't remember ever seeing anyone else use the kind of setup we liked, and I've always wondered why. They were foolproof, free and a lot easier to move and carry. And they kind of made you feel a little bit like you were living off the land--or could if you really had to.
The only hard part was cutting holes. My bad reputation about being careless with edged tools carried well over to the old ax we used for fishing through the ice, so I almost never had to cut the holes. Further was the argument about how big the hole should be. I leaned toward optimism, and if I was allowed to cut my own holes they turned out to be about three feet across. Not only was that sheer fantasy but somewhat dangerous, and it took me so long to cut a hole that big I'd never have gotten more than five or six lines in. And the old ice ax was the only thing we ever used--no matter how thick the ice. You often got wet using it on the last few inches of really thick ice, but it did a nice neat job, and somehow it seemed important to have it look just right.
Our lines were heavy cord; I seem to remember that we used plumb-line and dyed it green. Each line was about fifteen feet or a bit more in length with a hook on one end and a loop on the other. The hook of one line fastened through the loop of another and the whole business of twenty or so lines was (being in one piece so to speak) wrapped around a big notched board with a rope handle for carrying. I figure that the whole business, so far, had to cost less than a dollar. The only other extras were the red rags, a dipsy sinker for sounding and an old wire strainer we used for skimming the ice out of the holes as they froze. The whole business was carried in a wicker basket, with the blue quart Thermos full of tea with honey riding on top.
As soon as the holes were cut and lines set out I was itching to build the fire. And you have to know that the kind of kid who would cut a three-foot hole to catch a pickerel you could pull up through a jug would have to build a fire so big and hot no one could get near it. If all the wet mittens I burned up trying to dry them were laid out end to end--I'd deny it!
I usually ate my lunch before nine o'clock simply because I liked getting exactly the right toasting stick cut and couldn't wait to use it. I never cared too much for toasted onion sandwich, really, but there was a strong belief going around in those days that raw onions kept you from all sorts of dread diseases. I never contracted any dread diseases--so who knows? If being wet and cold was unhealthy I never would have seen the ripe old age of twelve.
So here we are. It's ten in the morning. On the shoreline roars a hardwood fire... and spread out in some loose formation that is intended to cover varying depths of water (my favorite set or two in the deepest part where I was wrongly convinced the big ones dwelt) and nothing happening. Time to skim the holes and jig the shiners just a bit to wake things up.
And somehow, in all this random world, one hole would assume a special something to my eye. I'd sneak my favorite shiner on that one hook--and watch the red rag like a hawk. Then, before too long, I'd find myself with my hat brim in the water, hands shading my eyes just so--and watching what went on underneath in that dark and lambent world. A world as fascinating--or maybe more--than anything I've ever seen. A world of cold shadows. A world of infinite mystery where I could imagine pickerel the size of oars and bass as big as hip boots.
But happily, it is more often than not the fish that are never seen that keep us coming back to fish again. Real fish are not the ultimate fish, no matter how big--we are convinced that deep down there swims something bigger.
The great thing about fishing is that we almost never know. And all we really learn from peering down through our hole in the ice is the everlasting magic of simple wonder.
The last set of willow sticks we ever used is sitting in a bundle tied with binder twine in a very special corner of my room. A faded picture of my father cleaning pickerel on the ice hangs right beside them. The rest is lost--except the hollow thunk-thunk sound of the ax biting into ice, the still-young happiness that comes with staring into a dark-green world that I will never understand and seeing the old plumb-line go taut and, as if by magic, comes the charging monster pickerel that still lives there, beneath the ice--a dream that is as new and old as fishing is itself.
From Mostly Tailfeathers, copyright (c) 1971-74 by Gene Hill. All Rights Reserved.
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