Manning the Auger Once Again

[Pete Collin]

 Sean Youngblood made sure I knew the perils of ice fishing Lake Erie.  When I asked him if I could come along on a trip to Sturgeon Point, his affirmative reply came with many caveats:  the gruelling hike to the perch grounds, the shove-ice barriers, the brutal winds, the fickleness of the quarry.  He made it sound like a grim plod up the Khumbu Glacier, without oxygen and towing a sled.  I wondered if we would have to rope ourselves together in case yawning cracks suddenly opened in the ice between us.  OK, maybe my imagination got away from me.  Or maybe lake Erie just went easy on us.

 

Let me back up a bit.  I haven't ice fished since 1992.  I'd join the easily-assembled posses of fellow college kids and auger holes into any promising body of water within an easy drive of Orono, Maine.  A packbasket with some tipups, a pail of minnows, some shared spuds and augers, and we were in business.  The pickerel were plentiful, the white perch tasty, the trout and salmon so seldom caught that a single capture was a heralded event.  The ice was always so thick that safety was absolute and arm fatigue a certainty.  Upon moving to NY, I'd hear about guys setting up on mere inches of ice, within sight of open water.  This struck me as so ridiculous that I put ice fishing out of my mind and my tipups got culled from the pile of possessions somewhere during one of many moves.

 

Some Sunday morning Youtube surfing revealed that there is fine panfish sport on Honeoye Lake.  In late January, I made a jaunt at that location.  Instead of cobbling together some gear and wandering from one jig hole to another, I brought only my cross country skis.  I guessed correctly that I would learn much more from seeing the sights and talking to people than I would from clueless trial and error.  Ice fishermen are much friendlier to strangers who are not pulling a sled.  There were plenty of talkative folks that weekend, and I sussed a great deal about the spots, the quarry, and the tactics.  Most were not enjoying too much action, but two young jiggers found the magic spot above a school of willing jumbo perch.  They were catching as I passed them both ways, their success topped by a fine walleye that joined the growing pile.

 

You can watch this for only so long without wanting to join the fun.  Assembled the following gear: a sawed-off ultralite rod, a cheap old boat graph rigged with lantern batteries, and an iron bar with a skew ground into one end.

 

Trip #1:  Honeoye Lake.  Tried to find the spot where those two young guys were.  Couldn't remember what the houses on shore looked like.  Boat graph transducer didn't work.  Froze may ass and quit after an hour.

 

Trip #2:  Loon Lake.  Gave up on fixing the old graph.  Blind jigged.  Spudding the holes was exhausing.  Swooped upon another guy's holes after he left so I wouldn't have to chisel any more.  No hits, no idea if any fish were around.  Warm sun went away and I froze my ass.  Quit after 2 hours.

 

Trip #3.  Honeoye lake.  New used auger.  New quilted coveralls.  New 80 dollar boat graph rigged with lantern batteries.  (Marcums and Vexilars are nice but Jeez!  Five, six hundred dollars for a fish finder?  You gotta be kidding me!)  Drilled 2 holes with the auger before cranking got real tough and cutting real slow.  One of the 2 blades had loosened and fell off.  Made do.  Jigged a 4 inch perch.  The skies parted, the angels blew their trumpets, and my 23 year exile  from ice fishing came to an end.

 

Trip #4:  Tried for smelt on Canadice Lake.  Doggedly drilled a few holes with only one blade.  No blips, no action.  Looked up from my graph to find it snowing hard.  Worried I would get plowed in - truck was already rammed into the unplowed shoulder somewhat.  Packed up and left after a couple of hours.  Roads terrible.  Figured nearby Honeoye Lake was a good place to wait out until the snow passed and the plows did their magic.  Boat launch plowed as if done by valets.  Jigged until dark.  Encouraged by abundance of bottom blips.  Worked the lure patiently, carefully, even cleverly.  Got 3 taps and one seven inch perch.

 

So I had nowhere to go but up on my trip with Sean.  We rode through the dark to Sturgeon Point.  I crammed my leggy frame into the shotgun seat of Sean's compact car, inhaling his stories, advice, and second hand smoke.  I've written on this website before how I love to meet hard core fishermen, and Sean Youngblood is absolutely one of them.  His resume includes bovine sized stripers at Montauk, tarpon at night in Florida, and being so successful as to be ruined for life on brown trout at the Ginna outflow.  I know his dad.  He replied to my appeal for a boat seat when I had trailer trouble last spring, but Sean and I never actually made a trip together until yesterday.  He was clearly the guy to call for some coaching.

 

So the death-march to the first waypoint was actually pleasant.  There was no wind at all.  The orange sunrise played beautifully over the blue thrusts of shove ice. 

The bevy of engine jockeys rode a dazzling array of every kind of mechanized vehicle that can carry itself over ice and drifts.  (I must say, the sport has changed in my absence.  Sure, you'd see the occasional dandy in 1980's Maine with a snowmobile and power auger, but the profusion of paraphernalia has exploded!  They reminded me of the Whos in Whoville on Xmas morning). 

The trail they made eased the tramp around the worst of the shove ice.  Yes, it took over an hour of steady marching to make it to the waypoint, but it was way easier than marking timber on snowshoes in the hilly Southern Tier.  Sean explained that he really had to test my mettle before we even went.  The weather and conditions could have been way worse (as I would later see).  You can't take a stranger on a long drive followed by a long walk followed by a long wait for fish only to have him say his toes are cold and he wants to go home!

 

We set up within hailing distance of Sean's friends.  They had already landed a walleye or 2.  Great.  Our first holes yeilded blank screens, but Sean reassured me that Erie fish are always on the move.  You jig your hole like an archer on a deer stand.  The first few hours gave only a couple of solitary blips.  I made a short move and watched my screen.  I could get the jig hovering just above the bottom line so there was just a bit of daylight between the two marks.  I twitched the lure, occasionally raising it.  Suddenly the daylight between bottom and lure blackened.  And I got a hit.  And cranked.  And pulled onto the ice my first jumbo perch - a portly 13 incher.

We made a quarter mile move.  A big ridge of shove ice blocked passage to the exact spot Sean wanted to go.  We each drilled a hole and saw a batch of activity underneath!  Sean ran commentary as I cranked the auger for my hole and the lines converged on his flasher.  He got a bite and took some time getting his fish in.  Out came a marvellous greenish-gray 'eye!

  I couldn't get my hole skimmed fast enough.  What happened next was weird.  The blips on my graph vanished as my jig got down to them.  Meanwhile Sean began piling up perch after perch onto the snow!  It was unnerving.  I'd see a blip.  It wouldn't move towards my jig and wouldn't stick around.  All the while Sean kept adding to his batch.  I drilled and jigged to his north.  Moving blips that ignored.  Drilled to his west.  BIG blips that inspected but wouldn't bite.  Sean had another good walleye on that came all the way up only to be dumped just below the hole.  Sean says that is a walleye specialty.  So I got a bit loud with my excited chatter during our photo shoot, so a man and wife team swoops in and sets up just close enough to be impolite.  "Pete, you really should keep it down from now on!"  It seemed like we were so far from everyone else that the floating city to our east didn't matter.  But one bored crew with sharp eyesight and swift transport could trigger an exodus of anglers to our immediate vicinity!  Lesson learned.

 

Sean's hole quieted down.  We watched listless blips for a few more hours, made a fruitless move, came back to the hot spot, and bounced jigs for a while longer without result.  Sean said he was up for fishing past nightfall if I wanted.  I decided that, without a flashlight of my own, I'd just as soon walk back by daylight.  This is right where things got interesting.

 

While assembling our gear to return, the promised "snow flurry" kicked in.  Just as I got into the shoulder straps, visibility fell to about 100 feet around us.  It looked the same no matter where you looked.  Now, this could have been a big problem for the unprepared.  Had I gone out alone, without a compass or GPS, not told anybody where I was, and not taken notice of landmarks on the shore, this could have turned into a very unpleasant night on the ice.  As it was, I carried a compass and knew the shot back anywhere on Erie is Southeast.  My smartphone had a GPS, Sean had a nautical GPS on his sled.  I had made a point of looking over my shoulder on the way out to notice a big cell phone tower near the parking lot to serve as my landmark.  I had brought food and was dressed warmly.  If it came to that, I would have survived until morning if we got stranded out there.  We powwowed about the correct direction back, marched about 40 minutes through the whiteout, and things cleared enough for the shore and cell tower to finally come into view.  It wasn't quite over yet.  In the dark, we naturally wanted to march straight towards the tower rather than vector around the worst of the shove ice like we had in the morning.  Sean could tell that I was skeptical about the need to do so.  Well I can testify that plowing through shove ice very taxing.  It acts as a snow fence, so the drifts tend to collect around the ridges.  Old snow forms a crust that may or may not hold you up with every step.  Should you break through, your foot jams against a hard, slick, angled surface that wants to twist your ankle.  I was lucky in that my long legs can get around in deep snow more easily, but neither of us was as fresh as 10 hours before.  For the last quarter mile, we got chauffered by a compassionate guy with a big quad that fit us and our gear.

 

I actually found the challenge of getting back to be exhilarating in its own way.  Part of the satisfaction in being an experienced outdoorsmen is to know that you have the smarts and stamina to get yourself out of potential problems.

 

So now, if you lasted this long, you have read about my entire re-indoctrination to ice fishing.  My catch rates are still abysmal.  But I sought some new experiences, exercise, and adventure, and found all 3.  Can't say how much of a shopping spree my new hobby will foment.  I'll probably make a shelter, pick up a few used tipups at the end of the season.  Any big purchases on my part will likely trigger an El Nino next winter that has us picking leeks in March.  We'll start this new interest off one trip at a time.  At the moment, I am eager for my next!

 

www.pcforestry.com

 

[rolmops]

Thanks for the great story.

It puts me back to where I was ice fishing near Burlington in 1979 drinking ginger brandy and smoking Vermont green.

Edited February 13, 2015 by rolmops

[MeatHunter737]

Quite the story.... I was hoping you were gonna land a nice eye!

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[foresterdave]

I remember the days of ice fishing most every weekend near Orono. Forestry students love their ice fishing. I graduated in 2003, although it doesn't seem like its been that long. We used to fish Sebasticook lake and Hermon pond. Great Crappie fishing. We used to make an annual trip to Moosehead and another to Spaulding Lake in Oakfield. The Oakfield trip was mostly ice drinking with a side of fishing. Those were some good times. Lots of ice, bitter cold, small camps in the woods, snowmobiles and I lot of great memories. Thanks for sharing your storey of the season so far. Good luck and stay safe. Hopefully spring comes early and we can get after the Ontario Brownies.

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[Pete Collin]

Dave,  Where do you work?  Procurement or consulting?  There is one other Umaine alumn here in WNY I know about.  We used to hit Davis Pond, Pushaw Lake, Alligator lake, and oxbows of the Penobscott.  It was fun taking the gazetteer map and scheming about which local pond looked the most promising.  No surfing the internet for tips in those days.  And you know how tight lipped native Mainers are with fishing advice!

I remember the days of ice fishing most every weekend near Orono. Forestry students love their ice fishing. I graduated in 2003, although it doesn't seem like its been that long. We used to fish Sebasticook lake and Hermon pond. Great Crappie fishing. We used to make an annual trip to Moosehead and another to Spaulding Lake in Oakfield. The Oakfield trip was mostly ice drinking with a side of fishing. Those were some good times. Lots of ice, bitter cold, small camps in the woods, snowmobiles and I lot of great memories. Thanks for sharing your storey of the season so far. Good luck and stay safe. Hopefully spring comes early and we can get after the Ontario Brownies.

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[foresterdave]

Pete, I am a consultant based in Moravia. My company name is Empire State Forestry Service, Inc. It's nice to know there are a couple other Umaine Alumni around. Two of my classmates currently live in Brooktondale, NY. They are married and he teaches at the University of Binghamton. She is a stay at home mom. Neither of them practice forestry.

 

I have been to Alligator Lake many times, but never fished it. I fell through the Ice there at the end of November in 2002. I was trying to get a photo of an otter. We spent a lot of time riding around the Stud Mill Road area with a gazetteer and a shot gun or fishing gear. Grand Lakes Stream was one of my favorite early fall destinations. Gin clear water and a healthy population of Landlocks.

 

Trips to the North Maine Woods and the Allagash were also a regular occurrence, at least twice a semester. I still go up there for a week every October for bird hunting. We stay on Big Machais Lake. Always a good time and a nice reunion with some old classmates. 

 

And yes I agree, Mainers are pretty tight lipped with the info. Especially if you are from "away". 

[thumbburn]

Are you a logger consultant for having your woods logged?

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[foresterdave]

I am a forestry consultant, I handle timber sales/harvesting, forest management and wildlife plans and pretty much any other forest management needs that landowners have. I believe Pete does the same type of work.

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