Outflow Fishing
  • Blog
  • Connect
  • Team Outflow
  • Subscribe
  • Canal Tides
Picture

Whatever Hooks You

On The Ice

1/9/2018

0 Comments

 
By John P. Lee
Picture
​Ice fishing is good for the soul. There is something about it. The starkness of winter, the long afternoon shadows, the sound of expanding ice cracking from cove to cove. I think it’s good for the mind to stand above the fish and drill holes and set tilts. It’s more trapping than fishing, more like setting lobster pots than casting plugs. This mindset is not for everyone, spreading out your tilts over a wide area, covering ground. But it is not passive, the drilling and moving, the thought about where the fish could be, takes energy.  And then when the fish bites and the flag pops, there is that moment as you walk over to the hole and see the spool spinning and kneel before it, your fingers on the line, feeling, feeling, then setting with your wrists. The battle is fought with your hands. How old is that tradition? Then the fish’s head is at the hole and it comes through and flops onto the ice. The colors of the fish seem to bloom in defined contrast to the monochrome ice. The perch are vibrant, the bass, the trout.  I also love how affordable it is, for all people, the opposite of trying to catch a grander marlin off the Great Barrier Reef or Kona. The fish are right there somewhere in the lake or pond, right there below our feet.  Enjoy these photos. I took them early in the season this year, right when the black ice set up, ice so transparent you could see bottom. Clear and bitter cold, my blood felt both frozen and fully alive. 
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments
    SUBSCRIBE

    Archives

    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017

    Categories

    All
    Blackfish
    Boating
    Casting Cork
    Diving
    Fall
    Fly25
    Fly Fishing
    Food
    Freshwater
    Freshwater Fishing
    Ice Fishing
    In Pursuit
    Instincts
    Largemouth Bass
    Native History
    Off Topic
    Parenting
    Plugs
    Pursuing 50
    Saltwater Fishing
    Short Hits
    Striped Bass
    Stripers
    Surfcasting
    Surf Fishing
    Trout
    Video
    Video Series
    Wildlife

    RSS Feed

  • Blog
  • Connect
  • Team Outflow
  • Subscribe
  • Canal Tides