The last week of November and the first week of December were unseasonably cold. In a short period of time the local backwaters went from open water to solid sheets of ice. The main channels of the Mississippi, Black, and La Crosse Rivers remain open, but all of the slower moving water froze. It got me thinking about ice fishing.
Usually I wait until Christmas to ice fish, but then I miss first ice. First ice is when the ice is so thin that cautious people do not venture out. It is also when the fish are still relatively active, so the fishing is often at its winter best. Supposedly two inches of ice will support an adult male, but this assumes uniform thickness. When I was a kid, I ice fished on quiet lakes in northern Wisconsin, and two inches of ice in one place generally meant two inches of ice everywhere. Here in La Crosse, even the backwaters have at least some current, so the thickness of the ice is never uniform. I am unnerved when my ice auger breaks through a thin layer of ice too quickly. I very much prefer it when a hole takes several minutes to drill and my arms are physically fatigued afterwards.
This year I stepped out onto the ice at Goose Island County Park on December 8. Goose Island is not my favorite place to fish, but the park has a couple of shallow lagoons where there is no current. The ice in these lagoons is not likely to give way, and if it ever did, the deepest spots are barely over my head.
There were a half dozen people already on the ice when I pulled up. As I was taking my fishing gear out of the car, a woman walked ashore and tossed her snowmobile suit into the front seat of a pickup truck. “Are you done fishing already?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I need to pee, and our guide says my only choice is to go in the woods.”
I’d assumed that “our guide” was her way of describing a boyfriend who wasn’t willing to help her find an actual restroom, but when I got out on the ice, I realized that she and two other people had actually hired a fishing guide. I didn’t know that La Crosse had fishing guides, and even if there were any, I wouldn’t have expected them to ply their trade in the winter.
The guide was not of the silent type. He set up holes for his customers to jig for panfish and then put out a half dozen tip-ups for northern pike. Afterwards he proceeded to share his knowledge of fishing with anyone within earshot. My chance for solitude was ruined, but I have to admit that the guy knew his stuff. I learned a little bit about proper jigging, and I noticed that the people who hired him were catching two bluegills to my one (even though they didn’t have a clue about properly setting the hook). The guide also had no qualms about wandering around the ice to ask everyone about the bait they were using. He was trying to find out what the perch were hitting on. His clients wanted to catch perch and so far hadn’t.
A week has passed since my trip to Goose Island. I am ready to get back, but the last few days have been cold and windy. I don’t need to catch fish to enjoy fishing, but I do need to feel comfortable. My days of sitting on the ice in subzero temperatures are over.
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