The Izaaks of Ice

Once it was solely an occupation to for Eskimos and masochists. Hunkering down beside holes in icebound rivers and lakes, in temperatures that would give a seal the sniffles, the Izaak Waltons of midwinter would spend hours shivering and waiting for the tug on a line that told them a pike or a perch had been hooked.

Today, althogh ice-fishing is one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S., the old bundled-up fisherman is fast becoming an imperiled species. At lakes from Maine to Michigan, most winter anglers now dangle their bait from inside heated shacks, many equipped with carpeting, color TV, stereos, stoves chemical toilets, bunks, closets and --the ultimate redundancy--refrigerators.

To devotees of deep-freeze fishing now at its seasonal peak, there is no other pastime quite like it. In the numbing months when outdoorsmen have little else to do, it is not only a rewarding sport--state and federal authorities estimate that ice anglers in the Northeast and Midwest catch at least as many fish each year as traditional fishermem--but a welcome weekend escape into a predominantly male world of tall tales poker and six-pack camaraderie. Each February, when the ice grows thick enough on lakes in the Northern states whole towns of ice-fishing shacks spring up, complete with telephones, electricity and posted roads--the exurbia-on-ice a Wisconsin's Lake Winnebago had a population of 30,000 last week.

Automated Fishing. Chopping holes through the ice and other such arduos labor these days is strictly for the Byrds. Gasoline-or electric-powered augers costing around $140 can drill through four feet of ice in seconds. Many fishermen keep their holes from freezing over with liberal injections of antifreeze. While most fishermen still knock together their own "bob-houses," more elegant prefabricated models can be bought for as little as $300 at sporting-goods stores, mounted on runners and towed onto the ice by snowmobile, car or truck (which can supply electricity for lights and appliances). The snowmobiles are also used for getting round the ice towns, but purists frown on them, complaining that their racket scares the fish away. Another factor in the growth of ice-fishing has been the development of thermal-layer underwear, which enables the shanty anglers to go calling on their neighbors in comfort. Many anglers bring along outhouses, furnished with "thunder mugs"-pots with disposable plastic liners. Even fishing is largely automated, thanks to the tip-up, a device that raises a red flag or sounds a buzzer when a fish bites. One Midwestern fisherman has trained a dog to rally round the flag and bark whenever it goes up, thus allowing its owner to concentrate on his poker game.

Like Hunting Seal. Favorite targets of the ice anglers are the great northern pike, familiarly known as Mister Big Teeth, walleye pike (which are actually members of the perch family), rock bass and lake trout, which in Alaska occasionally weigh as much as 50 Ibs. Some of the more athletic fishermen go after sturgeon with spears through large holes in the ice, like Eskimos hunting seal; they dream constantly of equaling the alltime record of a 310-lb. fish landed in icebound Lake Michigan. Bluegills, crappies, smelt, muskellunge (muskies), whitefish, grayling, skipjacks, sunfish, brown and rainbow trout, and even eels are fair game for the ice fishermen; on Michigan's Lake Charlevoix, an assiduous angler can count on landing 60 Ibs. of smelt in one night.

Those who are hooked on the sport vow that "winter fish" are much tastier than summer catches. And, like the anglers of August, individual ice fishermen swear by their favorite bait. Live minnows are the most popular -often painted red with mercurochrome so the fish can see them-but fish eyes, balls of dough, red worms, silver wigglers, deer-fly larvae, meal worms, dead smelt, corn borers, wax worms, ice flies, crickets, metal lures, and red flannel dipped in bacon grease all have their adherents.

Food prices, of course, have enhanced the lure of winter fishing, but the ravenous anglers seldom have any catch left over to take home. "We sometimes get 50 to 60 perch here on a good weekend," says Steve Weber, 27, proud proprietor of a two-story fishhouse on Minnesota's Lake Mille Lacs. "Then I make a glutton of myself." Maine's Senator Ed Muskie, who worries about his weight, has the same trouble. He often spends weekends back home tucking into the bountiful catch on China Lake. In Muskie's home state, alas, a muskie is hard to find.

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