No thin ice worries on fishing trip to Lake of the Woods

My nephew Sam Patterson of Atkins last Sunday faced the dilemma all ice anglers dread: Do I risk my life to try to save a stranger who has fallen through thin ice?

'I struggled with that - I really did,” Sam told me the day after he inched close enough to throw a rope to a distressed angler immersed in the icy water of Lake Macbride.

Sam, who looks like an NFL lineman, said he was nervous about being on the ice at all, let alone approaching a spot that had already swallowed a much lighter man.

But those mental deliberations resolved themselves in the time it took to position himself for the rope throw. And by the time official help had arrived, Sam and two other anglers had pulled the cold and tired man to safety - the last act, Sam said, of his 2017 ice fishing season.

Thin ice, the bane of ice anglers in much of the state this less-than-frigid winter, never crosses the minds of the throngs who converge each winter on Lake of the Woods, 600 miles to the north.

I and eight friends on our annual northward escape earlier this month lowered our jigs through 2 feet of ice and, like thousands of others, confidently drove our pickups over miles of lake ice to reach our spots.

The certainty of being able to fish all day, every day, is one of the great attractions of a midwinter trip to Lake of the Woods.

Many a summer trip to distant waters has been ruined by storms and gales that keep anglers shore-bound, and the winds that howled across the lake on our recent visit would have thwarted boat anglers. But we noticed them only when we stepped outside the heated and insulated sheds provided by our host, Long Point Resort.

With nine of us spread among four such sheds for four days, we caught enough walleyes and saugers for two fish fries in addition to the 72 fish the law allowed us to bring home.

Our only regret was the time between bites occasionally seemed excessive. I and my two shed partners, Jim Brace of Winthrop and Dean Baragary of Monti, all went fishless on at least one of our four days on the ice.

During such interludes, we comforted ourselves with the thought that our next bite could be the 'money fish.”

As if waiting hours for a bite were not excitement enough, we cranked it up a notch with a cash pool for the day's first big walleye, defined as one falling within the lake's slot limit, which requires any walleye between the lengths of 19.5 and 28 inches be returned immediately to the lake.

With nine anglers each contributing $5, the daily prize is $45, and it goes up an identical amount each day it remains unclaimed. Since none of us caught a slot fish in four days last year, the prize stood at $225 on day one of this year's trip.

As daylight faded and everyone began to anticipate an even larger prize the following day, Ted Wieland of Quasqueton broke radio silence to announce his shed partner, retired East Buchanan football coach Mike Stafford of Winthrop, had landed a 20 incher.

Ted himself took the second day's prize with an identical walleye, the last slot fish of the trip, so we can all look forward to catching a $135 fish on our first day next year.