Ice-capades

There are few events in below freezing weather that I can say I genuinely look forward to each year and ice fishing is one of those events. The variety in the pursuit of fishing itself is what draws me; you could fly fish in fresh or salt water, go chasing after lake bass with a spinning rod or sit on a bucket watching a flasher, and when you start to throw different species in the mix, the options are endless. Late November fantasies of chasing tip up flags and jigging down a clear green hole makes me look forward to the hardening water each year.

I have not ice fished enough to consider myself a master and my past lives mostly included a kayak heated by the sun, rigged with spinning rods, floating in pink sunrise waters but every time I got out on the ice, I had a blast. It was a hobby I looked forward to relocating with and the Montana trout under twelve inches of ice seemed just new enough to keep it interesting.

That said, my assumptions were correct. I have spent many days on the ice, be it pond, reservoir, or lake so far this winter and the high peaks decorated in frozen waterfalls and escalating shadowy pines surrounding the watering holes could bring me back without a single fish on the other end of my lines. Catching trout, walleye, and perch makes the deal just that much sweeter.

The first endeavor of the winter was a private pond with good company. My friends and I had watched trout surface while duck hunting this pond just a few months earlier and decided we would give it a go. The rumor has it that the old man who used to own the ranch would catch a bunch of fish and come home too drunk to clean and prep them, so he would empty his bubbling bucket into the pond. Certainly not an environmentalist's dream but the pond was stocked and so I felt enthusiastic hanging a chartreuse tungsten jig just above the bottom with this tall tale in mind.

My friend’s yellow lab pup took joy in sprinting from one fishing hole to the next, that day, and peering into the water then grabbing our lines and running with them. It was an aggressive jigging style that proved unsuccessful and while it made us laugh we were quick to let our line fall back to the bottom and jig with the minutes we had before the dog's return.

Soon enough, my buddy pulled a small trout up and we cheered as it’s pink stripe flashed in the sun. Yet another, followed. Shortly after I felt a familiar tug, one I had known from back home in Michigan and just like that a yellow perch came up for a visit. We celebrated the first fish of the season with my friend’s homemade dandelion wine that was golden and tangy and resembled the perch’s belly in the sunlight as we raised our glasses standing there in our fishing bibs.

As many anglers like to say, we were hooked. The ice fishing streak began. We spent eight hours on the Canyon Ferry Reservoir that next day. There, a group of us hardly marked a fish on our flashers. I had never fished with electronics before and my distaste of the idea was quickly followed by a modern day affection for quick gratification. The flasher resembled a video game and I tricked myself into thinking my jig was a fish far too many times. The day was a bust but as we stood on the wide open reservoir and listened to the evening ice eerily crack and shift, I noticed that my friends and I were the last ones on the ice with the exception of a far away shanty setting up for overnight burbot fishing. The setting resembled how Antarctica or Russia might appear in your mind if you had never been there. The dark blue mountains covered in feathery snow wrapped around the lake and as the low hanging sun tucked behind them, it sent a glowing yellow and wild-caught salmon colored glow over the desolate location.

While the ice fishing events have been plentiful, there is a final occasion I’d like to share. In a recent trip to a small reservoir centered in the nearby national forest, a large group of seasoned and fresh anglers gathered with high hopes of success. What we found was something a bit sweeter: good old-fashioned fun.

Half of us woke long before the sun had even given rising a thought and we made our way up the icy mountain roads with cliff edges where I think they must have forgotten to add rails to. I sat in my good friend’s truck and I took comfort in the shifting vehicles ahead and behind us as we slipped from one switchback to the next. The augers and rods and sleds mingled and clattered in the bed of the truck. I smirked as each sip of coffee made its way down my bibs in the difficult and bumpy ascent. When we parked, I kissed the ground, and began to pack the sled.

Our friend Poldi was already making a B-line for the dam while our friend Matt was packing extra gloves, beer, and doritos into his sled. We planned to spend sun-up to sun-down on the ice. As we climbed down the boulder lined lake edge toward the ice we turned our heads and sat quietly. The sunrise had done something I had never quite seen before and as the light stretched over the high mountain peak, everything turned to life. It was the type of sunrise that pulled the breath right from your lungs, stopped you in your tracks, and asked, “how have you been living your life lately?” I listened and lived in the sky for a few moments alongside the neon orange atmosphere and the rose colored alpine with its peaks all painted in pink.

After a few moments, I was finally released from the hypnotic arrival of the sun and was down on the ice prepping tip ups, checking the wind, then lowering the flags. We drilled holes for all the folks we were expecting and began jigging away. The morning flattered us and by ten o’clock in the morning, a small pile of eater trout were laying still on the ice, stunned and gills clipped. Then the rest of the gang started to arrive and as if we had given the fish a script, the show began. “Tip up,” we would yell as a red flag bounced into the air and we’d send a new ice-angler clumsily running for it. “Tip down,” we’d shout just moments later as one of the tip-down rods on Poldi’s homemade contraption went nearly flying into the hole. Every angler was setting hooks like nobody’s business. The flashers were showing schools of fish, the flags continued to erupt in the midday madness, and the fish pile grew. We were a well-oiled operation by the early afternoon and I boiled cider and whiskey on the camp stove alongside a handful of brats; a middle of nowhere kind of lunch.

The ice that day was electric. The hollers and smiles and laughter that shook the ice beneath our feet as people proudly gripped their catch for the camera and shared stories over the quieter moments was the epitome of ice fishing. Chasing fish and praying for success and hoping to fill the freezer is all wonderful, but spending a day on the ice, between the expansive mountains layered in trees and snow, while people catch their very first fish through the ice has a bit more to it. The days when you can’t even remember if you caught a fish yourself because the pure joy of helping others pull line through their gloves to find a twisting brook trout coming up above the mystical ice is far better than any fish you could have caught. The days when you go home with a bag of fish whether you missed every line tug or not. The days when you remember that just being outside, in snug bibs, sitting on a cold bucket alongside a few other wishful anglers, is plenty enough to stick it out on the ice; even more than that, plenty enough to be happy.

Photo #4 & #5 Credit: Matt Gagnon