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Luxury Ice Fishing Digs : Why Rough It ?

By on Jan 26, 2009 in Uncategorized

Bob Humberg is a contented man. He’s watching Dr. Phil on his TV, sorting through some antique coins and keeping an eye on two fishing lines that extend down holes he cut through 28 inches of ice and into the lake beneath his fishing shack.

icefishingx Luxury Ice Fishing Digs : Why Rough It ?

Ice Fishing Lake Manitoba Narrows in Great Comfort and Luxury ?

It’s 20 degrees outside, but the Clear Lake resident’s homemade ice house is so warm he’s not wearing a coat. He was here for three hours this morning and didn’t catch a thing, so he came back at 2 p.m. and will stay until maybe 7. If he gets hungry, he’ll make popcorn or bake cookies — which often results in visits from his neighbors in the middle of Clear Lake. If he wants a nap, he’ll stretch out on his upholstered bench. If he gets bored, he’ll read, or he’ll slide a tiny camera into the water and watch the fish on a video monitor.

“A lot of people don’t understand how you can sit out here hour after hour, but I love it,” he says. “You meet people and you catch a fish once in a while.” Humberg, 61, is a heavy-equipment operator who doesn’t work during the winter. While he’s sweating in the summer sun, he thinks about being here. His wife, Linda, doesn’t share his passion. “You couldn’t get her out here with a log chain,” he says. “She doesn’t want anything to do with this.”

For many of the USA’s 1.7 million enthusiasts, ice fishing is a reason to look forward to the winter. The sport is popular in Alaska, New England, Canada, Scandinavia and Russia, but it’s a fundamental part of the culture in the upper Midwest.

PHOTOS: Many still find ice fishing cool

In the 1993 movie Grumpy Old Men, set in Minnesota, characters played by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau have an argument while ice fishing that ends with one of them using his car to shove an ice house through thin ice.

“Sitting outside in the freezing cold, building a little nest for yourself … is the ultimate expression of the strange Midwestern ethic,” says James Kaplan, co-author of Guys on Ice, a play set in a Wisconsin ice house that’s been performed nationwide.

The sport’s longtime image as a haven for men who want to escape their families and consume alcohol is changing, says Byron Eckardt, who leads seminars on ice fishing in Pennsylvania and runs the website IceFishingPA.com. “I see a lot more young people out on the ice,” he says, and about 20% of the people he trains in state parks are women. In Pennsylvania, he says, “interest has really grown in the past 10 years.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says participation in ice fishing fell from 7% of all anglers in 1996 to 6% in 2006. Still, an ice fishing derby last month in Forest Lake, Minn., drew 7,500 people.

The sport can be done cheaply or in over-the-top luxury. Some people poke a hole in the ice and plop down on an upended bucket to fish. Small, tent-like portable ice houses can cost as little as $150, but lavish wood-paneled shelters can cost $10,000 or more.

Popular on Clear Lake are both portable shelters — which get packed up after each use — and “permanent” structures that stay all season. Such houses must have reflectors to make them visible to snowmobilers and others as well as labels with owners’ names and addresses in case they’re in danger of sinking, says Scott Grummer, fisheries technician for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

That’s not the only danger on the ice. This season, two men died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their ice house on Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods and an ice fisher died after falling into Pennsylvania’s Lake Ontelaunee. Thefts from ice houses are not uncommon.

None of that is on Dan Hoffman’s mind as he uses an auger to cut through the ice before setting up his portable shelter. “It’s just fun to get out and spend time alone, not worrying about anything, chasing that big fish,” says Hoffman, 43, who works road construction in the summer and has time for fishing now.

Ervin “Shorty” Eimers, 80, made his shelter 20 years ago from plywood and canvas. Today he’s preparing to haul it off the lake as the season’s end approaches. He comes here a couple of times a week from Burt, Iowa, 50 miles away. His friends don’t understand the appeal, but he says, “I told them I probably learn as much out here as I do there with all the gossip.”

Clear Lake is one of Iowa’s most popular ice fishing spots, Grummer says. This season, there were 100 permanent shelters on the lake and up to 150 portable houses on weekends. As many as 20,000 fish — mostly walleye and yellow bass — were caught in January and February, he says.

Ice anglers must have fishing licenses, which in Iowa cost $17.50 a year or $12 a week for state residents, but there are few other rules. Fishers can keep three fish a day; only one can be larger than 22 inches. There is an unspoken etiquette code: It’s not OK to set your ice house right next to someone else’s, and leaving trash or fish behind is unacceptable.

Humberg says “sometimes we have happy hour when the fish aren’t biting,” but Clifford Franklin, 73, and Warren Jencks, 61, who drive 90 miles from their farms in Hawkeye, Iowa, to fish here at least once a week, drink only coffee.

The fishing buddies, who are wearing four layers of clothing and three pairs of socks, arrived at 11 a.m. and will stay here until at least 6 p.m. “We talk about everything and anything,” Franklin says. “Basically, it’s something to do in the winter,” Jencks adds.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-05-Icefishing_N.htm

Ice Fishing Lake Manitoba

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