All across Wisconsin, ice fishermen look longingly from their windows. They have temperature gauges affixed to their decks, but the needles on these gauges won’t budge below 30. The lakes are capped over, but a useless scrim of ice won’t hold a good-sized human. The ice fisherman have dug out their crampons and life-saving ice pics. They’ve hauled 2x6s to their shore lines and used these boards to bypass the melted shore ice. They’ve even walked a little way onto their lakes, surveying the situation.
They’ve tested the ice with their spud bars. 2, 3 strikes before breaking through. It’s true there’s no such thing as safe ice, Wisconsin ice fishermen will grant you that. But there is a number that makes them feel safe. For each ice fisherman this is a personal number, but for almost all of them, the number is at least three. Less than three inches of ice gives them a bad feeling in their groin, even as they stand on the ice thinking maybe it’s probably okay. Wisconsin ice fishermen tell stories from their youth, fishing on an inch and a half, how the ice sheet undulated as they walked across it, how water from their auger holes came rushing to greet them. But those youthful days are long gone. Yes, it’s true, all across Wisconsin, ice fisherman have gotten older, and they’ve gotten less brave. And so they look longingly from their windows. They tell their wives that no fish is worth a life. But while this tired platitude might mollify their wives, the ice fishermen of Wisconsin don’t believe it themselves.
