In ice fishing, you take what you get until you can catch what you can

WILLIAMS, Minn. - The generally meaningless expression, 'it is what it is,” actually held some meaning for me and my seven friends during a four-day ice fishing visit last week to Lake of the Woods.

Intent upon catching big fish in the 'walleye capital of the world,” we were at first reluctant to keep sub-15-inch saugers.

After a half day's fishing, however, it became clear that skinny saugers would make up the bulk of our catch and that, if we were to eat fish for two nights during our stay as we'd planned, we had better accept that the fish 33 feet beneath our ice holes 'are what they are.”

Practiced at lowering our standards, we quickly adjusted and reveled in what amounted to fairly steady panfish action.

Still, the prospect of catching a 'slot fish” - a protected walleye between the lengths of 19.5 and 28 inches - added a measure of excitement that was enhanced by a pool in which each angler put up $5 to be claimed by the catcher of the day's first slot fish.

On day one, Mike Stafford of Winthrop won the $35 pool with a 23-inch slot fish, and he almost won it the second day when a similar fish came unhooked in his hole and escaped before he could grab it.

Perhaps mindful of that and certainly mindful that the prize had doubled after no one claimed the day two pool, Jim Brace of Winthrop acted decisively when, on the third day of competition, a big walleye came to the top of his hole.

With light line and a flimsy rod, it takes skill and patience - and sometimes rash behavior - to coax a large walleye out the top of a 36-inch ice tunnel into the open air.

You can't just trust your 4-pound-test line to bear the unsupported weight of a 4-pound fish. And on Lake of the Woods, where all slot fish must immediately be returned unharmed to the water, gaffing it entails the risk of injury.

Somehow, while keeping a taut line on the squirming fish, you have to grasp its slippery head and help it out of the water - a task made more difficult, if not hazardous by spiny dorsal fin rays, sharp teeth, and razor-like gill plates.

Jim did not hesitate. He stuck his thumb in its mouth and lipped it as if it were a relatively smooth-gummed bass.

A moment later, he appeared at the door of the fishing shack shared by me and his brother Dan Brace of Winthrop and, with a blood-splotched handkerchief on his thumb, presented the fish for verification.

We should not have been surprised that a man who has no respect for the cold would be untroubled by pain.

Bill Sloan of Quasqueton claimed the fourth-day pool with a 24-incher, and at supper that evening the three winners, motivated by both generosity and pity, treated us losers - myself, Dan Brace, Richard Brace of Cedar Rapids, Dean Baragary of Monti and Doug Reck of Winthrop - to several rounds of drinks.