|
|
|
|
[ Thursday, March 2, 1995 ]
The lure of fishing
Locals say 8-inch ice is the perfect place for relaxation
By JULIET GREER
Collegian Staff Writer
One by one, they walked down to the water.
The sun barely peaked above the horizon, its yellowish hue beaming through air so cold that eyes would rather shut than be dried out by its devastating harshness. But as a new dawn crept up on the lazy hill at the north end of the 72-acre lake at Stone Valley Recreation Area, men in orange hunting jackets got out of their cars and trucks so they could walk on water for a day.
They looked stuffed wearing fluffy coats and snow pants, green fatique-colored caps and gloves, and boots with big, thick soles to keep the ice under their feet from making their aloof day of coldness too unbearable. They grabbed equipment from their trunks and surveyed the lake for good spots to drill through the 8-inch ice.
Some would rather have remained inside at 7 a.m. on this 20-degree morning, like the park's assistant supervisor, who watched the ice fishers from the comfort of her heated office trailer.
But the nine ice fishermen who peppered Stone Valley's lake with little holes last Saturday were more concerned with pickerel and bass than with the temperature. They were merely thankful the wind was still and the park was silent.
In the middle of the lake, a 17-year-old, red-haired boy carved into the rough ice with his auger, a large drill used to make fishing holes. As the blades spun around and sunk deeper into the ice, little shavings piled around the hole's perimeter. Brad Meck, a local high school junior, brushed them aside and put his bait in the water.
Meck, his stepfather and his stepfather's friend said they planned to stay until the sun faded into night, or until their stomachs started to grumble for dinner.
"Hey, I think we got a flag," yelled his stepfather, Kevan Gochnour, a construction worker from Hollidaysburg. "Brad, you wanna get it?"
And Meck swept swiftly across the ice to the spot where a little red flag snapped up on the wooden contraption that sat atop of the fishing hole. He lifted the string out of the water and let the skinny, yellowish pickerel slide around on the ice for a second or two, and then Meck dropped it back in.
"I don't like pickerel much," said 41-year-old Gochnour.
But he said he liked getting outside this time of year, when he can't go hunting. His group was satiated by hamburgers, sodas and a tiny grill. And if they got too bored, they said they would sometimes find a little piece of wood and play ice hockey with their feet.
The Pennsylvania Fish Commission allows fishermen to drill only five holes apiece but that does not stop the fish from biting, usually in spurts when a school swims by. Gochnour, who has been ice fishing for 10 years, said he can catch 15 or 16 fish on a good day. His friend, 40-year-old Gary Ott, caught a 24-inch fish last Saturday.
"I deep fried it in batter," he said with a
shy smile. "Tasted just like Long John Silvers."
Gochnour said the fun for him was not eating the fish, but waiting for them to bite the bait at the end of the line.
"You never really know when that flag pops what it's going to be," he said.
And then the silence broke.
About 100 yards east across the lake, the handle to what sounded like a lawnmower pulley slapped against its metal base with a ping and the roar of the gas-powered drill, echoed off the hillside and off the the trees whose leaves died long before the ice was born.
George McCormick and Charlie Lair, friends for 25 years, drilled through the ice with the gas-powered auger their wives bought them one year for Christmas. Quiet returned as soon as the holes were drilled, except for the crunching noise McCormick and Lair made every time they stepped onto the slippery surface with their homemade ice cleats.
"On this kind of ice, you almost have to have them," Lair said as he picked up the bottom of his foot to reveal two metal spikes that were attached to his boot by a leather strap. Lair, with glasses and gray hair peeping out from behind his hood, bent down beside one of the holes to skim some ice that was forming on top. As he strained the particles with a metal spoon, he began to relate the joys of his arctic endeavor.
"I just like being out in the open air, especially when there's snow and the cross-country skiers go by," he said. "It's a good outlet to go out and go fishing."
But the 57-year-old said the most enjoyable aspect of the sport is "the solitude." Licenses decorate the angler's hats and coats, but typically, authorities do not come by to bother them.
Jenny Kramp, the park's assistant supervisor, put her feet up on her desk and looked out the window at the fishermen, who she said visit Stone Valley because "they can come here and relax, and not have to worry about it being crowded."
The only thing she said concerns her is the depth and strength of the ice. It has to be between 3 and 6 inches for people to fish safely.
But from the warmth of Kramp's green trailer stocked with cross-country skis and ice skates for rental, the 1.2 miles of shoreland around the frozen lake appears barren.
Some women and children typically join the die-hard fishermen on the ice, but last Saturday the men stood alone. And the fishermen know there are people who do not understand what could make someone want to stay on the lake for hours, jigging little rods and sitting on the bottoms of cold, overturned plastic buckets.
"Most people say, 'Oh, you're crazy'," Lair said. "But if you dress warm and the fish are biting, you don't notice the cold. I couldn't imagine living where we didn't have winter."
As winter cold gives way to spring, the ice-fishing season is already nearing completion. The lake at Stone Valley will be stocked today, so it will be closed until trout season starts on April 14. And sights of padded ice fishermen walking on water will be replaced by anglers wearing shorts on the shore, trying to reel in the big one that wants to wiggle away.
Send an Opinion Letter to the Editor about this article.
Created: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 6:14:48 PM -4