Lake Superior Ice Caves

Drilling through 29 inches of instinct and ice

1 - Across the snow and ice I walk, listening to the lake, imagining the depth contours below, how the fish will swim along this shoreline. Down there lives a beast I seek. Often I look for animal tracks on the surface. Where are you going, wild things? But really I wonder: Where I am going?

2 - There is something invisible in this world that reveals the perfect place for a fishing hole. This force gives my instincts mass. I read an article about a similar mysterious force, the Higgs boson, "an elusive, missing snowflake in our theory of falling snow."*

3 - Looking at a frozen lake blanketed you cannot see a single particular snowflake, or a single molecule of ice. This is impossible for the human eye. But there they are, millions and millions, together a soft quilt across a hard sheet of ice, a barrier between me and them.

4 - My skin perceives the snowfield as it fluctuates and breaks back into singular flakes, shimmering between the sky above and the water below. Eventually I am satisfied and stop my feet, drop the drill from my shoulder, right hand on top pressing down, left hand the engine, driving the blades round and round. This is something I've done thousands of times before.

5 - However: This is the end of February on a big lake. Two feet of snow on top, twenty feet of water below, the ice membrane a deep and strong field in between.

6 - The blades of the drill must be sharp at the perfect angle, creating the perfect friction. It would be a mistake pushing too hard or turning too fast. Great force in short bursts works better. One violent turn of the handle at a time, a steady rhythm, and for each turn I am one inch closer to the fish.

7 - The first few spins are effortless, the blades of the drill just getting teeth into the ice field. The arms whir with youthful electricity.

8 - Five inches down, life is easy. Ten inches down, the hands are still lively. Fifteen inches down, ice particles start grabbing at the blades... And then they grab at the arms, and then the shoulders, and the feet. Friction spreads quickly through the body, soon the lungs and guts start burning, then they howl. It's odd, to a person watching on shore this must seem like nothing at all. Such a stationary and simple thing shouldn't be so hard, but it is. Vision narrows with primal determination: Keep going, keep going. Sixteen inches, seventeen inches...

9 - The muscles become looser, but heavier. The mind must be quiet, but aggressive. Energies increasing against resistance. All of these competing forces pushing towards a breaking point. How much further to liquid water? Can I turn the handle one more time? Three more times? A thousand more times? What is my limit?

10 - When I was 18 I got my first job in the boundary waters. I had never been up here before that. I've been wondering ever since why I sought that job, how it all came to be, that first step in the right direction. Some invisible force, perhaps, something I will never really understand. On my nineteenth birthday I got drunk and watched the northern lights at the end of an old dock. And after you've seen that, what is there to understand?

11 - Then a few weeks later I moved back south.

12 - It seems to me that everyone is just looking for their place in this world. Part of me is upset I didn't see mine right away. Maybe I just couldn't comprehend it. I guess I was stuck in an in-between, I wasn't air anymore but I wasn't quite water.

13 - Twenty inches and the top of the auger blades begin disappearing into the lake's frozen skin, the teeth so far away... At this point each turn of the handle requires a steep increase in energy. A reckoning. The ice and snow fight back now, but I get meaner.

14 - Twenty-one inches, twenty three, twenty five... Managing a small newspaper in the city, married, bought a cute house with hardwood floors. We adopted two kittens, planted lilacs and tomatoes in the yard.

15 - Drilling a hole through deep ice requires great energy but so often that energy is wasted, it seems. Nothing substantial is caught there. It was not the right place. Or maybe, the right time.

16 - Thing is: I'm stubborn. Twenty six, twenty seven... I get what I want. I won't ever stop looking, twenty eight...

17 - The reason I'm always yearning, why I'm grinding ice to slush, is that I'm demanding of myself. I can't take naps. I never get sick. But there is a sickness, this constant cold desire, never satisfied. And I try so hard for optimism, but this world makes it so difficult.

18 - Is the lake even down there anymore? Has it frozen solid? How many turns of the handle has it been now?

19 - My teeth grind and jawbones clench, twenty eight, twenty eight, I'm seeing red... 

20 - As has happened so often in this life the doubt creeps in. Maybe the whole world is an icy heart. Maybe I'll never catch another beast.

21 - My arms are dead, my lungs are empty, my mind goes blank, twenty eight, twenty eight... The last grinding punch is the most difficult as the bottom gives out, but then everything breaks free and the blades taste the lake again, the barrier between us has been obliterated. Every single cell in my body howls with happiness. And there is excitement in this new possibility. Maybe, just maybe, this is the place.

22 - Seeing wild liquid water in the winter always electrifies me. I place my bare hand in the lake and splash it on my forehead, and instantly feel better. I snap back into myself.

23 - Then I realized something I already knew: No energy is ever wasted.

24 - Energy is mass.**

25  - All the hard work, the mistakes and successes, the tired muscles and happiness, each and every infintismal moment big and small, snowflakes falling on a frozen lake, piling up, there is the origin of instinct. What happened drives us to what will happen. These are the animal tracks in the snow.

26 - In my twenty-ninth year I said goodbye to the city and the girl I loved and I moved up north again, to the Gunflint Trail. Some invisible force brought me back here, something I will never understand.

27 - I breathe deeply and bait the hook, always hopeful. Watching the minnow drift down through the ice field into the vast darkness, I know something it does not, but I still know very little.

28 - Farewell, little one, bring me back a big one. It's an old trick, knocking a hole in the ice for water and meat.

29 - And I want that meat badly, I'm so thirsty for cold water, but I want nothing more than this: A permanent life in these boundary waters that have given me everything and energy and mass.

* - "Chasing the Higgs," New York Times, March 5, 2013

** - E=MC2

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An elusive lake

There is an elusive lake filled with trout, says Ed. I read about it in a Sam Cook column. He never found it but we should. It's just loaded with lakers. 

This conversation I file under "future adventures." A few weeks later I am still thinking about it. The difficulty only increases the desire.

There are two reasonable options into this lake. One is shorter but requires more bush-whacking. The second is a longer hike but the trail passes nearby. Looking over my F13 Fisher park-map in the out-house I visualize the approach up the frozen creek. A small space heater roasts my right thigh, and I burn the course into my gps.

The Packers lose miserably on Saturday night... and we move from early ice to the mid-season. On Sunday we watch more football and play cards, we feast solemnly on slow-roasted beef.

Monday rises cold and quickly. Too quickly. After breakfast KB and I lazily gather gear, sip on coffee and watch the sun hit high noon. No urgency. But at one there is an itch, let's go blaze this trail, let's go find the lonely lake. It's too late in the day and too cold, but we go anyways.

Should be three miles in, or maybe three and a half. Wonder what this path used to be? Somebody's old drive-way, some dreamer. Something goofy with almost anyone that would live up here. Someone cut this path and the trees try and erase it. It feels level but the whole way we're going downhill, deep into the park. 

A helicopter flies over, are they counting moose? Are they watching us? We take a few wrong turns. Sections of the trail are so overgrown we are crawling on our bellies. In a cluster of birch sits the metal remains of an old buggy, rusty and haunted. And then we reach the valley, where even in winter the water keeps running north. 

The trail levels out and when it turns back north my gps grows wary. Turn right. Turn right! An organ starts playing in my thorax, somewhere in my guts a bass drum starts kicking. It's over there, I can feel the gravity. Off the trail the snow gets deep but we bounce through the marshlands and tall grass poking through the snow.

And then the landscape opens up. And there it is, the elusive lake. Off a deep point I punch four holes and set the traps. We snuggle against the shoreline out of the wind, chewing frozen granola bars. 

This is fun, but this is crazy. And our eyes say:

This is ourrrr lake!

Yesss it is!

But we've left ourselves too small a window here, and lacking live bait, we fish for just one-half-hour, unsuccessfully, then point sore legs uphill, into the wind. 

We cross the creek, meander along the valley of the marsh gawking at the rock-cliffs, up to the west, across the secondary creek, up and up and up, and under the fallen trees. But I don't remember that tree. Or that one. Then: there's the old buggy. And: look at the size of that cedar! 

We reach the truck in the blue of night light dissolving into blackness. And now we know the way. It is so burned into our thighs. And another day we shall return, but today, oh today so hungry, we are done.

Cold North Dakota Hot

My good friends Tyler and Mary have been living in North Dakota for several years now and I had been planning on visiting them via the Amtrak 'Perch Express' the entire time. And the Winter of 2012 allowed me the opportunity to follow through on that, so I did. On February 8 I boarded the Empire Builder in Tomah, and after twelve hours of drinking smuggled wine and reading and a quick nap, I arrived in Devils Lake, North Dakota. Ty was waiting for me in the pre-dawn darkness, truck idling. The Prairie.  I was wide awake and hungry.

We went out for breakfast, where I got the 'Cedar Sausage Breakfast' (which is one big sausage the size of a large brat, delicious, dippy eggs and potatoes, coffee and toast) - a good start to the trip. "This whole part of town is below the lake," Ty said as we drove to get bait, pointing out the 'lake level' markers on the street light poles, 12 to 15 feet off the ground. Huh. Devils Lake is filling up like a clogged bathtub, and when the water reaches the edge, they simply build a new levy and move the shoreline back. They can't let out as much as they are taking in, otherwise Fargo would flood downstream. So the shoreline of this lake is very odd... Roads just disappear into the lake... Old farms are now surrounded by ice and fishermen. Sunken timber from the old shoreline is found throughout the lake. This is all happening on a super-massive scale. Devils Lake is already well over 100,000 acres and it's growing every year, and from what Ty tells me, they don't really have a long-term plan. I was unsettled by this, just as I was unsettled to see lakes six feet below usual levels up north of Ely in October. On the one hand, I like things that cannot be tamed, but I don't like seeing big trees and street signs sticking out of the ice and I don't like seeing rocks exposed that have been submerged for centuries. For as much as I enjoy fishing and exploring waterways, I guess I'm uneasy about depths in the same way I am about gravity.

We had three full days of fishing until my return train's scheduled departure, and the first morning served up the best weather of the trip. The temperatures were mild by North Dakota February standards, and the wind was calm. But an hour after setting up camp the wind howled and the clouds moved in... some flurries appeared... the thermometer dropped into the single digits and exposed fingers quickly froze solid. Days two and three were sunny, but ultimately, even colder. Both of my big trips out of state this winter have reminded me what a real winter should feel like and I believe there is something inherently good in confronting frostbite.

I expected North Dakota to be more desolate, flatter, but in many ways it reminded me of large portions of Wisconsin - big snow-dusted fields rowed with scrub trees covered with the subtle pink light of winter, the deer are like our deer, the people, too. Other than the wind-chill and the insane size of the lake, the other main differences in the fishing is you get four lines per person, which is the most I've found. However, they don't allow any big live bait. If you want something bigger than a fathead, you must deploy deadbait, and in this role we cast Blue Herring from Puget Sound. This required some tweaks in rigs and strategy, but overall the pike seemed happy with our offerings. Also, the lake's food chain is all built around these tiny freshwater shrimp, which is why the famous Devils Lake perch get so fat. Which is also why the pike get so monstrous. Most tourist fishermen who visit Los Diablos (as I was calling it for some reason) chase these 'jumbo perch' but it's no secret I am only interested in the biggest fish in the lake so we basically set out as many big blue herring as possible the entire weekend, with one rod dedicated to jigging in the shanty.

Day two was pretty slow fishing and we only managed one fish iced with a few more nice pike lost to underwater snags (likely timber). Ty had something gigantic on that ran into some sort of tangle-den, so even the slow day had exciting moments. The first and third days, on the other hand, were simply excellent. We had lots of action despite the cold and the fish were all fat and healthy. Around noon on Saturday I was jigging a minnow head on a spoon and I caught a decent pike, the first one I ever caught jigging, and I screamed the entire time I was reeling it up (I usually don't have the patience for this tactic).

The highlight of the trip happened at the end of the first day, when we each caught our best fish of the year within a five minute window. Both pike were truly trophy fish, but the way we caught them made this a truly memorable five minutes. We had one hole that had already caught a few fish, and about a half hour after I caught a nice 30-incher nearby, that 'hot hole' went up and Ty caught a 35-incher with something huge in it's gut. As that fish was pulled on the ice, the line snapped, so after getting a picture and releasing the giant, we grabbed a nearby tip-up and stuck that in the hot hole. I started de-icing some other traps, but only minutes later I turned around and the hot hole was up again. I ran over and suddenly the entire trap jumped sideways in the hole. I knew that meant the line was snagged on the trap somehow, so I just grabbed the line and the fight was on. I had no way to give the fish more line so I basically had ten feet of line between my frozen hand and an angry, beast pike. Luckily the rig held and I caught my best fish of the winter - a ridiculous 37-incher. We couldn't believe what had just happened and I still can't... I've gone entire winters without a 35-inch fish, so to see one that big and an even bigger fish caught from the same hole within five minutes was simply mind-boggling.

So we fished during the day and at night we celebrated and I caught up with Ty and Mary and their cats and new dog, and it was a very good visit. I said how glad I was to have visited finally, and they agreed. I said how relieved I was that I didn't have to drive back. Too often, the looming drive back home seeps into the end of a visit... That thought takes time away from enjoying the company of friends you don't see enough, and without that thought lingering we just laughed right up 'til the end. And on Saturday night they drove me to the station and I hopped back on the Empire Builder... I think I said 'Au revoir' and did a dramatic wave before hopping aboard, or maybe I imagined I did. I finished whatever wine was left in my nalgene and watched the speckled lights of farms floating by on black waves. No stress. Bliss. When I awoke the sun was up and the Mississippi was wobbling by the big window to my left, bluffs of the driftless towering up beyond the windows on the right. It looked warm out again and the thought of spring trout streams tickled my neck. Did that all just really happen? My camera battery was dead. We crossed back into Wisconsin and then I was home and I slept for a long time.
 
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You can view more pictures and the official stats from the trip in my Wild Almanac logbook.

Urban Waters

Probably no, I'll never escape the gravity of the city. Some days I feel like it's the only place with light and some days it's a black hole, from which no light escapes. What am I doing out here? What am I doing in there?

Weightlessly I orbit, and once again I was pulled back into Madison on Friday night. I saw some old buddies, we had some drinks and went out dancing. It was electric. My buddies in the band had people over after the show and then the sun was up. The darnedest thing. I had come down here for some ice fishing on my former home waters, but how can you go to bed when you finally get in a room with your old bowling team and a barrel of beer? 

So we got a few hours of sleep and then we got some breakfast, and then we made our way through the traffic to the lake. And somehow the spot off the American flag was open, so we set our traps on the premium coordinates and got used to fishing with each other again. There I was, surrounded by houses and noise and incoming commercial air traffic with Fritz and Cheeto. There was no wind. It was maybe the finest February ice fishing weather I've ever experienced. Last year we had three good chances at a really big fish on this spot, and that's why we had come back here, and then at 4 the closest flag jumped, and Fritz caught the fish above. It was as if a long-term plan had finally been realized. We whooped it up and probably worried some of the neighbors.

Before dark Cheeto caught another pike, and then a third flag popped and it was my turn...

And I busted the pike badly, and I could tell right away it was not big, but was excited to get one on the ice anyways. I felt the fish running around the beam of light... fighting against the light... or maybe against the gravity of my pull... This was natural. It was how it always was.

I pulled the pike through the hole and looked it in the eye. Now you and I are the same on these urban waters, you poor wild one. Of course the fish was wounded. There was some sort of infection, something hurtful that had never healed properly. 

And I was disgusted by this, but why should I be? Weren't we both still following our instincts despite it all? I put the poor boy back into the lake, and we both weightlessly set back into orbit around these bright lights. 

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Bed of Thunderstorms

Winter camping has a way of turning the natural world upside-down. This has been something on my to-do list for a long, long time, and I finally had the chance to give it a try last week, returning to the park I spent seven months of 2011 exploring. And this was a good excuse to visit my good friends Erik and Tori, who are lucky enough to have each other and an off-grid cabin in the northcountry complete with a wood-burning sauna.

And what better way to see the Boundary Waters in winter than by dog-sled?

The reason Erik gets to stay up north year-round is he works as a dog-sledding guide in the winter months, and so we followed up a perfect fall trip into The Quetico with a two-night winter trip up to Knife and Ottertrack Lakes on the border-route. Myself, Erik and Tori were joined by fellow adventurers Ed and Nick, out of Duluth, and so five sleds and twenty-five doggies set out into the Park on Tuesday morning over a crisp two-inches of snow. My team, pictured above, featured a crazed yearling named Proby (top), lead dog Possum, Xena, Brillo and Cash.

Everyone else in the group had already run dogs before and as we harnessed and hooked up the teams, the lake access became a scene of organized chaos. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was definitely a bit intimidated, but was told Possum would follow the track automatically, and that I should use the brake as needed through portages, and then suddenly all sleds were cut loose and we were off into the frozen wild. In the moments before we turned the dogs loose they were all going crazy and yipping and howling and barking, but once the sleds were set free it was business time and the quieted huskies happily began churning out miles and miles of pristine borderlands. The cold froze in my beard and stung my face but the dogs simply loved it. You could tell. They ran with purpose. This was a paradise.

A twenty-mile day by canoe is a strong effort, but we quickly gobbled up nearly that much distance in just a few hours, and I only crashed my sled once along the way (but I didn't let go). We quickly found a wind-protected bay on Knife Lake and got the dogs all settled in and fed (frozen mink - yum!). Then we got to setting up camp and collecting a huge pile of wood, and finally Ed and I peppered the bay with traps. Although we didn't spend much time fishing we did pretty well during the trip, each catching a nice Lake Trout.

There is really no way to prepare yourself for spending three days in sub-zero temperatures without the benefit of permanent shelter. It's one thing to travel through The Quetico when it's around the freezing mark at night... quite another to travel through the northcountry when it's well below freezing the entire time. No matter how big a bonfire you build, things simply freeze and never thaw. Putting your contact lenses in upon waking becomes a hazard, assuming your contacts are not frozen solid. And although we had a big tent with a wood-stove, I was determined to earn my 'sleeping on the frozen lake' badge. I had my 15F bag stuffed inside a -60F bag, and the first night was very comfortable sleeping beneath the stars. The second night the lows dipped to 30-below and it was colder than that with the wind-chill. Weather radio warned against exposure... keep your pets inside, it cautioned, as our dogs slept on the snow nearby. The clouds and flurries of the day broke around midnight and as the stars twinkled above the lake really started to sing, seismic molecules whistling like whales from the deep.

As I snuggled into my sleeping bags, the ice shuddered and boomed, and I could not sleep on this bed of thunderstorms. Like everything with winter camping, the world was askew... the storm on the horizon was beneath us, and the only calm in the Milky Way overhead, vivid and steady.

In the morning we pointed the dogs west and our faces were burned by the wind. Like every trip to the northcountry it was over too soon. And you would think there would be comfort in a heated cabin, in a huge cheeseburger and good beers, in a sauna so hot it made breathing difficult... but there is nothing in life like the power of a thunderstorm, real or imagined. Already, I miss this frozen bed, and how I got there.

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For more information on dogsledding in the BWCA, visit White Wilderness.

The old-fashioned box trap

Something doesn't belong here...


I easily obsess. Ice fishing became much more than a hobby, for me, a long time ago. And let's call it what it is: Out there on the frozen lake, we are trapping wild beasts. I realize it's an odd way to spend so much time. The spread is this machine from my mind... It is a creative outlet... I construct from frozen water, this pattern... I feed it small fish and it brings me big fish, and I take their picture. I am very particular about my machine, but it is always organic, derived from the day, and so I never have complete control over it's design. I only want the best for my spread, so I take good care of my traps, the mechanisms of this device. Probably, I'd be better off directing that attention towards more important things, but will I ever? I wonder.


I have more traps than I need, but it's good to have a deep tool-box. And they all pretty much look the same and work the same way, when you get down to the moving pieces, and then there's this box trap I got my hands on. My buddy Tim stopped by for the weekend and he brought this old-fashioned gizmo from the roaring twenties. This old relic is the kind of trap my Grandpa Walter would have used back in the day. It's a beast of a contraption and awkward to use, and there's a reason they don't make them like that anymore, but Tim quickly explained that it did one job better than anything I was currently using.

The old-fashioned box trap, Tim noted, is perfect for running monster bait. The reason is the box keeps the hole from freezing up so often, which allows you to use a huge bobber to keep the monster bait under control.

Our foot-long friend Glen, pictured here, is such a bait. As I said before, when I put little fish into the machine, it produces big fish... So what happens when you put big fish into the machine? Aha! A-HAA!


Well at least that's the idea. Tim agreed to loan me the box trap and two jumbo suckers, Glen and Gary, since I live on the lake where the Wisconsin State Record Northern Pike was caught and this type of monstrous presentation seems appropriate for the setting. Nothing has happened yet, but I know this strategy requires great patience. 


And I am willing to be patient to get what I want... So I spend days and days sitting out there trapping, seeing, waiting for the biggest fish in the lake to wander by and think, Oh my, Mister Glen, you Handsome Devil... Why, I bet you are quite delicious! 

And I watch the other folks out there fishing with worms and catching little perch, smaller than our friend Glen, and I can't understand why there are people who don't want the biggest fish in the lake as badly as I do, and I wonder what kind of machine I am to think that way? Am I an old-fashioned box trap in this world? Do I not belong?


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Riding the Pine Highway: On proper tip up etiquette and procedure

Everyone calls the moment differently...

It all depends on the situation, of course. Who you are with. Where you are fishing. How long it's been since a fish has been caught, and a multitude of other factors. The classic is calling it by name: "Tip-Upppp!" I use that out of habit nine out of ten times. Sometimes I just yell "Flag!" Other calls I've used include "Yep" and "There it is!" Occasionally I'll just start running towards a struck trap with swift silence. The key is not the words or actions used but the tone. When your trap has been hit you must convey the excitement of the moment in your call... You must let your fellow anglers know - instantly - that the time for action has arrived. A big rule we have on the ice is "No Running or Yelling!" There are exceptions, like if we are playing football... But excitable actions like running or yelling are primarily reserved for the big moment we are all seeking out there on frozen lakes.

I would say there is a sort of honor in getting to make the call... Of course you have to be the first to see the flag to sound the alarm, and so over the years I have developed a 'constant scan' when I am on the ice with bait in the water. I do this automatically, like breathing. I program the spread into my internal GPS and then I spend the hours looking for the slight change in picture that tells me the moment is here. It's not that I'm looking for the risen flag, so much as I'm looking for the motion or ... or what is out of place here. The sensation of that realization is one of my most alluring addictions, and I'm not ashamed to admit such foolishness. I take pride is editing the spread, on noticing, on sensing the attack. It's one thing to land a fish using a fishing rod and nets, but quite another when the line is in your hand, when the net is literally your hand... and so every second is crucial for success.

Watching your traps is just one part of the big picture, out there. Unless you are in the right spot at the right time, with your traps set at proper depths with the perfect bait, you are already of-pace. It takes many correct decisions just to get that bite, and even then nothing is guaranteed.

The complexities of ice fishing dynamics could fill a book but there is no substitute for actual trapping experience. You really must know the thoughts of your fellow anglers, and this can only be achieved through many days and nights on frozen waters. I have a telepathic connection with my main crew of ice fishing buddies - Chinwhisker Charlie, The Warden, Silly Deen,Wolfspotter and Slowhand Lucious - but we only share that bond because of the systems we have perfected through the years. And I would say the system allowed us to more quickly form the bonds that join our thoughts on the trap-line.

(Another fun part of ice fishing culture is the selection of a fun 'ice fishing character' that is tuned for precision setup and flag-watching and hand-to-hand combat with massive cold-blooded fishes ... mine is Ike Walter).

We call our system "Riding the Pine Highway." The origins of this peculiar name are unimportant... It was coined after a day of drinking beer in sub-zero temperatures and it is fun to say. So it stuck. What that phrase means is the subject of tonight's post.

You could say the Pine Highway is a philosophy... But I guess it's more an extension of the laws of nature. At the heart of this system is this truth: You will be judged by your peers. Each angler is responsible for his or her own traps (or 'rigs'), and when it is your turn on the Highway and the moment arrives, your form and results carry weight. There is pressure to do well, but what the system really requires is that you are honest in assessing your effort once the moment has passed.

The Pine Highway is a communal system designed to give each angler the best chance at catching a fish. When I first started ice fishing each guy would bring his own rigs and it was kind of an 'everyone for themselves' deal. If you were new to the sport and didn't know what you were doing, you learned by watching... The Highway is more of an apprenticeship, it offers a sense of teamsmanship in the cold wind. I am sure we are not the only ones that use this sort of approach, but I don't think it's the norm. Essentially, when we are using the Highway, each angler will put his or her best three traps into the collective trap-line (you are allowed three lines in Wisconsin, at least). So say four of us are fishing. Normally you would have your three traps and if you happened to pick an unlucky location, then that was your problem. But with the Pine Highway, all twelve of those traps are now in play. We use a 'shotgun start' method, so that if you have a good rig with a good bait in the right spot, and it goes up first, then you get to take that flag. Eventually a 'lineup' is created through this process and then the sharing begins.

Riding the Pine Highway indicates that you are 'up to bat' ... that all of the group's traps are now yours. So instead of fishing with three traps you are now using all 12 ... or all 21 ... or all 30. Whenever that next flag pops it is yours to take. Doing this ensures everyone gets some action and usually everyone ends up with a fish at the end of the day. At this point I am always hoping I catch a big one, but if Chinwhisker catches a monster then I consider the day a huge success. And if I have a fish on the board, then I am always hoping my buddies get the next one. So I guess I'm a Bolshevik.

The key 'moment within the moment' comes when you are on the Highway and a trap springs... Hopefully you catch a fish, but often there is no fish to catch. Sometimes they hit the minnow and drop it before you can reach the line. Sometimes the minnow is a rascal and the flag is false. The brilliance of the Pine Highway system is giving the 'rider' the power to 'make the call.' Was it really a fish or not? If not, you are still on the highway, but remember, you will be judged by your peers! Even if you end up getting two 'falsies' in a row it is usually time to jump off the highway, making way for the next in line. There are only so many flags to go around on most days, and so, you don't want to be greedy with your opportunities. On good days we might go through the lineup three times fully. Sometimes it's your day and sometimes it's not. This is the nature of trapping.

While I enjoy the basic philosophy and real-world application of the Pine Highway, it is not a perfect system. Like communism, it fails on a larger scale. The more people in the system, the more impracticle it becomes. Once you have six or seven people on the highway, it is likely the people in positions six or seven won't get an opportunity unless you are on a high-action lake. So there are still cases where 'every angler for him- or herself' is the best option. But, in groups of 2-6, the Pine Highway is an ideal method for giving everyone the best chance for success, and that is why we have enjoyed utilizing the system whenever possible.

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Solstice Pike

Author's note: This is the second part of my 'rare solstice' series. Part one was Solstice Wolf (June). -am

This is not a rare fish, but a rare result when you know the whole story. I have been fishing Lake Puckaway for seven winters now, dedicating numerous days each 'early ice' to this massive lake me and the boys half-jokingly refer to as "big, shallow and evil."

December of 2006 was really good fishing, and December of 2008 was some of the best ice fishing I've ever experienced. But in 2007, '09, and '10 we didn't catch squat. December on Puckaway is an unquestionable indicator. When you catch fish in December you will catch them all winter, it seems, and when you don't, you might as well not fish there until summertime. This evil lake has a definite 'switch' in the winter... it is manic-depressive... feast or famine. And it is most definitely evil. 

I will not go into the official file, but there is ample evidence as to this lake's evilness. We are all convinced the waters and surrounding land are possessed by an entity we simply call 'The Father'. Nothing comes easy here. And you might ask, Well why don't you go fish somewhere else? This is a reasonable question. However, the state record northern pike was caught here, and whenever we are able to overcome the The Father's sinister defenses, we have earned amazing rewards. Not state records, but we've caught the kind of fish here that make you keep coming back even after two straight winters of catching absolutely nothing. We are not chasing reason, but something more like unlimited potential at great risk.

Since I've been living here I've been keeping my eyes open for omens: Would it be a good winter or a bad winter? It seemed every other day I would swing the other way. Things would be going really good for me, I would be feeling an electricity, and then the next I would be feeling gloomy and questioning why I had even moved here.

And then there is the squirrels and the cat. 

There are hardly any regular gray squirrels here. There are lots of black squirrels and albino squirrels. I see them all the time. It's somewhat disturbing but mostly I laugh. It seems when I see a black squirrel on my morning jog the day is depressing and when I see an albino I have a really great day. If I see my turkeys and deer it will be a so-so day. And any day I see the black cat I might as well just not go outside. I think I am becoming like the lake, living here full-time... I am developing a polarizing switch of sorts. I like it here and often thrive on the solitude, but it is really lonely sometimes and I become suffocated by the emptiness of this existence. Especially when I can't fish, when I am stuck inside with my ... thinking. So now I guess I'm predicting my life on some kind of self-fulfilling 'critter sighting' scale. It works for me.

I awoke on the shortest day of the year and just knew I was gonna see that cat on the porch again. Finally I got up and made some coffee and I knew I couldn't sit inside again, so I got my gear together and went outside. And right away I saw the albino squirrel. Hey buddy! He ran off. Then I got to the lake and somehow it had added a few inches of ice overnight even though it barely got below freezing. I decided to go out by myself, and I eventually found myself on Jerry's Reef, or close enough I figured. As described in the previous post, the ice had formed and then broke up and melted, and then refroze earlier this week. The result was strange fields of heave ice, where huge blocks of original ice had been caught in the secondary shell. It was the thickest ice out there, much safer than the smooth stuff, so I put my traps amongst the heaves and got some reading done (Hell's Angels). 

 

At noon I heard the emergency siren in Princeton so I had a shot of bourbon. The air was calm. Around 12:40 the sun popped out and I noted this. 'Light changes' often spark a bite, for whatever reason. You can't argue with the data. And sure enough, at 12:49 I looked up from Hell's Angels and the middle flag was up. I trotted over and the line was not moving. But when I looked down the hole I could see the line was waaay off to the side, and then as if on cue, the spindle began moving again. Muscle memory took over and I quickly set the hook and landed the little pike. It was only 25 inches but nice and fat and feisty...

But as I've said, it was a fish that filled me with excitement for what it represented. I knew exactly what a December pike would mean since I got back here. And then at 3 the sun peaked through the clouds again and another flag popped... And I missed this fish but it was most certainly another strike, and so as I watched the sun set on the Winter Solstice I started doing the calculations. The data was very promising. I knew we were looking at a special winter. I texted the boys the good news, and I felt hunger and was satisfied, so I picked up the traps and marched home.  

Back daylight, today belongs to the darkness.

-30- 

First ice, no ice [+video]

The boys came up to The Fort last weekend for our annual 'first ice' trip on Lake Puckaway (The Puckopener), and we just barely had ice. This will be my seventh winter of keeping general logbooks of the things I do (primarily outside), and every year so far we have had walkable ice (1.5 inches or more) by December 10. Some years are creepier than others. For as much as I ice fish, going out on the ice for the first time each winter is alarmingly unnerving. I have never really* gone through the ice and I don't ever want to, but I do take some chances. And this week's weather is proof of that.


Yesterday it reached 50f here in Mecan, Wisconsin, and it rained for 24 hours straight. These are two of the primary enemies of ice, naturally. But ice has resilience! We could all learn a thing or two from ice. I always say, based on the scientific data of my logbooks (of course), that "it takes a lot to make ice and it takes a lot to melt it, too." Well it might not be purely scientific but I've found lots of truth in that 'rule'. I've been ice fishing in t-shirt weather in the spring. Long-term trends matter a lot more than current conditions.


Anyways, so then the wind picked up today. And that shot any ice fishing plans I might've had for this weekend. The lake is nearly wide open again, so we'll need two or three really cold and calm nights to get back to square one again. Frustrating. I have a winter to live here full-time and we're now two weeks off the normal pace. More time to write, I guess.


Since the ice was so scary last weekend we didn't go very far out and so we didn't catch any fish... but we did enjoy the ice nonetheless. And so I present my newest video project: Slidin'!!!!! [warning, there is some cursing in here, sorry, I got excited]

* - Going in shin-deep on shore in the spring doesn't count.

-30-