Ice fishing back in the old days, mid 40;s

[efgh]

I started ice fishing back in the mid 40;s, some of the gear every one used included, a chunk of fork handle about3 ft. long, nail driven in the end to poke in the ice, cut off and sharpened, 2 nails or screws about 12 or 18 in. on one side to wrap the line on, probley 20 to 30 lb. black cotton line, tied to a piece of gut leader 8 ins. long with a no. 6 gold hook. A 6 ins. pencil bobber was attached to the line for depth, enough round split shot was pinched to the line 2 ft. above the gut leader to allow the float to stick out of the water about 1/2 ins. How this was fished, grab the stick pull the line up about 3 ft. and let it down fast, stick the nail on the end back in the ice, when you got a bite the bobber would slowly go down, set the hook and hand over hand pull in your catch. You saw guys on the lake cutting hole with axes, hatchets, some of the real fisherman had ice chizels made by the local blacksmith, you did not move much. One thing that always amused me was if you were catching fish someone would come up and say how deep are they, depth was given by arm lengths, some mens arm length was probley 6 ft. 6 in. anothers was probley only 5ft 6in or so. I don;t think anyone on the lake was fishing the same depth.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Efgh-Thanks for the memories... That was a lot of fun to read. Fishing as we know it has really changed over the last 60 years. It will be interesting to see how much it changes over the next 60. Just whne you think they cant come up with anything new, they come up with something.

[icehousebob]

I remember fishing in the 50's when ice augers were first appearing.We fished Crappies,period. You set the house on the lake and didn't move it all winter. One story comes to mind, late winter a neighbor of mine was going out fishing with a farmer who lived on the lake. The farmer drove his Ford tractor with a rear-mounted post hole auger out to drill the holes. A couple other fishermen came and offered him 25 cents a hole to drill some for them. This was Big Stone Lake, which was state boundary waters and two lines each were allowed. Well, after he drilled their holes, more people asked him to drill theirs. He never got to wet a line that day but he made over a hundred dollars, which was a good week's wages back then.

[Ed Carlson]

Old School ice fish'n, good topic.

What makes me grin is reading folks worrying about if it takes 7.8 seconds to trill a hole or 9.5 seconds. If you chopped as many holes through 3' of ice as I did in my early years seconds or fractions there of +/- doesn't bother me in the slightest.

My first ice auger was like a gift from God and my first power ice auger a revaluation of the new ice fishing testament.

Seconds seldom matter when you can appreciate the alternatives at hand.

[icehousebob]

Hey Ed, Do you remember the first power augers ? The ones I remember were home built electrics, made from a car starter motor and a Ford steering worm gear. My first ice rods were old broomsticks with two sewing thread spools screwed to them. Crappies were fished with a plain hook and minnow, and you never moved it because that would scare the fish. And always fish Crappies 18 inches off the bottom. That was the gospel according to Uncle Herb.

[Northlander]

I made many of those broomstick handle ice poles with the nail in the bottom end to stick it in the ice. Also made a few old school tip ups but Ill take my Fishing Brothers or Frabil insulated anyday. They were pretty crude.

Funny thing was everytime I fished I always had a bobber on my lines. Never jigged that much. Oh ya the old days. Walked up hill to and from the lake too.

[Ed Carlson]

Yup, seen and used a few of those home grown electrics and early gas augers. Some were extremely fast, or they appeared to be at the time anyway. They burned up a lot of wires, starters, and solenoids. A buddy had one that was kinda wild and once you hit the starter button it was all you could do to hang on.

If you have ever seen the first Jiffy it looked like a Yugo engine with a ice auger stuck out of the transmission. It was just about as light too, a beast.

The ice auger systems of today sure have came a long way.

[icehousebob]

Ed I remember those electrics being real arm breakers. You hit the button and it was full speed. If fading memory serves, they sometimes built them with 6 volt starter motors and ran them off 12 volt batteries for more speed. You could get really amazing burns off those hot wires. One vivid memory was a farmer who bought a new 3010 John Deere in Ortonville one winter and drove it on the lake to show his friend. It quickly lost a lot of value.

[upnorth]

When I 1st tried ice fishing back in the late 70s you never seen to many power augers and the guys who had the hand augers were living high. I remember chopping many holes with a spud, man I used to take my son out and by the time you chopped 4 holes in 2 to 3 feet of ice you were not even thinking of moving.

An extra 4 or 5 seconds to drill a hole in the ice seems like small potatoes when you can remember things like that.

[The Grebe]

efgh...I had my first tastes of ice fishing with an old boy that used the old ways. He was the father to one of my boyhood friends.

He had a house up on Mille Lacs and the first time they took me up there with them, in the back seat of their 1954 olds, back in the late 50's, I was definately on cloud nine!

The lines were braided, the poles were ice pick type, the holes were cut with a spud and once the house was set up, that is about were it stayed.

The first Mille Lacs Walleye that I pulled hand over hand, through the ice, I was so thrilled I almost fell down...I can honestly remember that my legs were shaking! To this very day, a Walleye out of Mille Lacs means more to me then a Walleye from anywhere else, a kind of reverence?

I used old style fishing tackle and techniques until the new stuff started comming out...I seen my first jigglestick when I was about 12 years old.

The old method of getting through the ice stayed with me, I improved on the chiesels and continued to chop holes right up until the FinBore first came out. I tried, but never had much luck with the Swedish spoon auger?

We were in ice angling nirvana with that FinBore! To cut 15 holes through thick ice was no problem, it was time to get moving!

I made the natural transition to a power auger, a Vex, an Aqua View, lightweight portables, new rods, etc. But I have never forgotten what a couple of older anglers gave me in a time long past, they got me started on a life long adventure, that continues to this day.

I tip my hat to Angel Relopez and Herb Eggert, two mentors ( Even though they did'nt know it) who are long gone, but never forgotten.

[CrappieJohn]

We used willow sticks about three feet long. The large end was iced into a hole to the side of your fishing hole , so that the tip of this stick was about a foot directly over the hole. We'd find our bottom and tie a loop in the line a foot shallower, bring the line back up and bait up, drop back down again and put the loop over the end of the stick. When the walleyes hit, they'd slowly pull the stick down, the loop would slip off the end of the stick, you'd grab it and set the hook. Hand over hand was the retrieve and many, many fish were taken this way.

No electronics were around, the augers were eitther spuds or hand models. Fishing was an art. You always knew who was best at what they did....they smelled like fish.

[The Yeti]

I can't go as far back as some, but Grebe taught us well. Most memorable were trips to Mille Lacs, Ann, and Knife lakes as kids. Mille Lacs holds a special place with me also, whether I catch anything or not. Does not matter..

I am very thankful that we grew up on hand augers, chisels, using arm lengths to measure depth, gas lanterns and stoves, and bringing in fish hand over hand with jiggle sticks. (still us em when fishing shallow panfish) Remember those round plastic "reels" that you could mount on a jiggle stick? I caught my biggest walleye through the ice with that setup. 7 1/2 pounder on Forest Lake. Yep, hand over hand.

We also learned how to tell what kind of bottom there was by slightly lifting the lead clip on depth finder, off the bottom and letting it back down. If you felt a solid "tick", you have hard bottom.

I appreciate all the new gadgets. I have a vex, jiffy, portable house, gps, propane lanterns etc.. But being taught the basics, and learning to love and appreciate the benefits of fishing, hard and soft water, is more valuble to me than any expensive gadget and I will be teaching the same concepts to my kids.

[Kingfisher]

efgh, Good topic. We never angled through the ice when I was young back in the early 40's, but my Dad took me and my brother spearing to a lake 3 miles from home. To cut the hole we used an axe down close to the water and finished the hole off with a chisel, we used horse nose baskets to skim the ice. Grandfather was a carpenter and he made all the decoys and painted them. I still have the spear we used. We also took apart the old crank phonographs and used them to spin the dare devils, later on we used half of a 7 day clock with a governor soldered on to keep the right speed, finally they came up with the battery powered motors with a rheostat to spin the dare devils. Fond memories

[efgh]

I never though about gas powered ice augers when I though about the old days of fishing, the first one I saw was mounted on a 7 H.P. chain saw, you took the bar and chain off the saw and mounted a auger with a small gear box on the saw where the bar went, this stuck straight out the side of the saw, to use, start the saw, tip the saw on the side and drill away there were about 10 of us that just stood there and watched, one old duffer said, god I wonder what thy will think of next, if he only knew. the way those old boys fished it was a good thing they did not have the equipment we have today, the only thing that would be in most lakes today would be water. everyone is entitled to a few good days fishing, quote from my dad, who started me on the best sport that I ever enjoyed.

[river rat316]

This is an awesome topic I was just talking about this with my Dad! I'm not that old but all we ever had was a handauger, homemade poles, no portable.... we caught a lot of fish though, I can remember goin to Mille Lacs and just driving to what seemed to the middle of nowhere and my Dad would stop the car and say heres our spot ( still dont know how he knew... or was he just guessing to?) and we'd get out and freeze our *ss's off but we would always catch perch and walleyes and have a fun time doin it, if you got cold you just went and sat in the car. Its the same way I'm gonna teach my son how to fish I think your better off as a fisherperson being able to look at a map and and see structure then be able to find it without electronics! Well thats just my 2 cents!