While the tradition of ice fishing on Super Bowl Sunday has been sporadic in recent years as Mother Nature can do that to a sport that relies on, you know, ice. Gus has been reporting good production locally but we made sure this year that ice would be present; north. More specifically Lake Skegemog in Williamsburg, Michigan. The same lake where the ultimate fishing prize is attained every second weekend of June (usually by the Seadogs), the Mother Cup.
This scribe is here to tell you there are just a few more fisherman out on Skegemog Super Bowl weekend versus June. We would maybe see five other boats fishing in the summer besides our crew of six or so boats. There were at least 100 shanties out on the ice; and one pickup truck! The ice was about a foot deep so the truck was in no danger of being submerged (and looked like a truck that wouldn't be missed if it were to go down). I brought my manual ice auger but thankfully it wasn't needed as Al purchased a power one. Key move as I wasn't in the mood for practicing my CPR skills if someone was going to try to manually dig. A proud AARP group we are.
Production-wise, the pictures below tell the story. One of us could have had a nice perch snack based on the production of us ALL combined. Good camaraderie, as always, with the group. Once the batteries died in the radio, it was time to sing and one fisherman, who shall be nameless, belted out some Amy Winehouse. He made the claim that it was a first Amy Winehouse song sang while ice fishing. And he was correct. And guess what song was stuck in my head while driving home this morning on a snowy two track freeway for four hours? Could not get that song out of the melon but made it home safe so thanks for the ride Amy.
Trail Head
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| Al and Doke supervising |
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| the Dining Hall - this is no rookie operation |
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| Gus' tool that he uses on unruly fisherman |
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| home base |
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| ice block created for Gus' hole |
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| lot of these |
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| Gus' Alabama tear drop rig - we tried it all |
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| more baby perch |
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| my quota (my tip-up bait was bigger) |
