Some pleasure and pain and serious fishing ~ March 1, 2001

David Heiller

Tom declared war on the trout at about 11:30 Sunday morning, February 18. We were camped on an island on Thomas Lake, 12 miles into the boundary waters. We had caught only two trout since pulling in the day before, and that just wasn’t cutting it for Tom.

“It’s time to get serious about fishing, I’ll tell you that,” he said as he toasted a bagel with jam over the campfire. Tom was always toasting something good.

Tom doing some serious ice chopping.

“I thought we were serious,” I said. We had four lines in the water at various depths, in a tried and true spot—one that Tom picked out, I might add. We checked the flags on the tip-ups every few minutes. We chopped open the frozen holes every half hour or so. That’s not serious?

“That’s not serious,” Tom replied, as if he could read my mind. “I mean serious. We’re going to go after them. Drill new holes. Move around. Start jigging.”

I felt like doing 20 push-ups on the spot.

Tom stalked onto the ice to check the tip-ups. I stayed by the fire. There is nothing as cheerful as a fire on a winter camping trip. The wind on the lake was downright raw. Back home the radio was probably talking about “dangerous wind-chills.” We didn’t need a radio announcer to tell us that.

Ten minutes later Tom was back. Nothing. He slumped down by the fire—he was toasting banana bread by this time. I decided I’d better get serious too, so I took a look at the flags through my binoculars. No need to venture too far from the fire.

Then I got to say the words that every ice fisherman longs to hear: “You’ve got a flag up.” Tom sprinted past me before my words were blown away on that howling wind. I grabbed my camera and followed.

By the time I caught up, he had chopped his hole free and was pulling up line. At first there was nothing.

Then Tom gave a yank. “He’s got it!” he said, pulling in more in line.

Tom stopped and said, “He’s gone.” He pulled up more line, hand over hand.

David and the pretty trout.

“He’s on again!” Tom said. He pulled and pulled, 70 feet of line and more. Then he reached into the hole and lifted out a trout. It was a beauty, 27 inches long. Very dark, almost black, with red at the tips of its fins. A good eight pounds.

That trout was the exclamation point of our winter camping trip last week. It was a pleasure to see, and there is a lot of pleasure in winter camping. There’s a lot of pain too.

The pain is as obvious as numb fingers and frozen toes. Or try getting out of your sleeping bag in the middle of the night to go to the bath-room when the temperature is pushing 30 below zero. Need I say more?

It’s a lot of work, skiing 12 miles, drilling holes for fishing, gathering and cutting firewood, and trying to stay warm when your hands are dipped in ice water.

The pleasure is more subtle. It is partly tied to the beauty of the wilderness. Like when we hit Thomas Lake on Saturday afternoon. We came across a torn up piece of ground that was littered with the bones of a moose. A pack of wolves had devoured it there. We found the skull and spine and hooves and other bones. Patches of melted snow on the grass marked spots where the wolves had slept. The ground was covered with their tracks and scat, and with the tracks of ravens that had cleaned up after them. It wasn’t a disturbing sight. It made me think that things were in balance there. Darwin’s theory lay right before our eyes.

The beauty really shined when we skied out on Monday morning. The temperature had risen about 40 degrees, to about 20 above zero. Our trail followed a creek that meandered through beaver ponds and hidden lakes for many miles. In the summer this area would have been impassable, a bug-infested swamp. But last week it was a crown jewel.

We had to work hard to see it, pulling a heavy sled through sub-zero temperatures. But seeing that land unfold like a field of diamonds made it worthwhile. It lifted my spirits and made me thankful to be a part of this land.

I was proud of it, and proud of myself for being able to do what I did. Some people look at me like I’m crazy when I go winter camping. And there are times when I feel a bit crazy while I’m doing it. It would be a lot easier to stay home.

But the rewards are there, especially with a good friend like Tom Deering, who is as smart and tough as they come. Besides being a serious fisherman.