Bear's Den: "Thick Ice is nice"

I was looking at the lake in front of the cabin today, and all that could be seen was good, old snow and… ice. Um-hmm, and it´s the latter that makes some hearts go aflutter. Now, snowplow drivers – people who have to traverse this stuff while slipping and sliding all over the roads in big, huge trucks – think ice is a nightmare. Yep, and that´s what causes the anxious ´beat-beat-beat´ of their thumpers. But, for that group known as ice anglers… thickly frozen H2O produces a pounding caused by absolute and utter rejoicing. Yeah, that´s because there´s little upon the Earth Mother that makes an ice fisherman´s heart quicken with glee… like thick ice.

American Indians have been catching fish through frozen North American waters for thousands of years. Originally, it was just basically a way to stay alive by catching food, eh. While it was an okay deal, it wasn´t often performed as just a ´fun pastime´. Back then, mid-winter was tough, and food was scarcer than jobs are today. But the practice has continued ever since the first Europeans arrived, and it´s now a wintertime sport. Now, Indians had long ago devised the methods still used today, and, barring only a few innovations, most everything is the same – hook & line or spear fishing. And while Indians used both methods, it was the spear that they favored overall. And, to my mind, there´s a reason for this. Indians were, and are, hunters. We´ve always pitted our wiles and ability against those of our prey. So, in addition to the contest, spearfishing is also a fairer way of doing business… as it were, hmm.

It´s been said that spearing fish through ice is one of the oldest and most ingenious fishing methods of the American Indian. I´m not sure about that because spearfishing is more of a hunt – one that wages the hunter´s skill and savvy against that of the prey. This is opposed to simply ´hooking´ some unsuspecting fishy, who takes a bit of food dropped in front of his nose, eh. Spearfishing usually brings in bigger fish than the hook & line method, too. And, since acquiring food was the name of the game, this played into spearfishing as the favored method. Now, while I´ve checked many an ice fisherman in my time, I´ve never personally been much on ice fishing with a hook and line, like a tip-up. To stand out there, shivering… around a dumb hole in the ice… waiting for a little flag to go up signaling I´ve caught a measly little fish… seems silly to me. I don´t like the cold no-how, and heck… if I want fish that bad, McDonald´s makes a decent fish sandwich, and it´s warm in their seating area … know what I mean? Besides, ice fishing is a lot of work, and hey… I´ve always been frugal and conservative – no sense expending energy when you don´t need to, eh. But, I digress.

In both olden-day and modern practice, spearfishing pretty much goes this-away. Anglers chisel holes in the ice and lower fish-shaped decoys into them. In the old Indian style, the fisherman lies flat on their stomach on the ice, covered by a dark tipi-like tent, and readies his spear to stab the approaching prey. It´s worth noting that when the blanket-like cover blocks out all of the sunlight, the hole in the ice is like a big-screen TV. Uh-huh, the sun has lighted the whole of the frozen lake, and you´re looking into an extremely brightened version of this, eh. It´s kind´a pretty, and surreal, all at the same time. Anyhow, the spearthrower drops in a decoy (a hand-carved and painted wooden baitfish) tethered to a leather string, and jigs this lure, while peering into the hole. They´re ready to jab their spear at any big fish investigating their wiggling bait. Now, the decoys are art forms. They´re made from materials in the surrounding woods; and they´re made with great care and artisanship. The lures are crafted and painted to look exactly like the creature that they mimic, eh. This is important, if you´re trying to fool a big old, smart, cagey fish, eh. They´re made to portray almost anything that might seem appealing to a big predator fish – local bait fish, frogs (fish ain´t that bright and forget that frogs hibernate), young muskrats, small ducks, etc. But spear-jabbing wasn´t all belly work.

Prior to the early 1900s, Indians used, basically, two types of spearing tents. One, mentioned above, was the crawl-in deal. It covered most of the fisherman´s prone, upper body while they lay, belly-down, on the ice on top of furs. Spearman used a short spear in this doo-hicky. The other job was a 7-foot tall, wiggy-wam configuration, that allowed the spear-thrower to sit down, upright, with a long-handled spear. The longer shaft extended outside the framework of the tent, and allowed more thrust and greater distance, eh. The spears were made from native hardwoods and the points were designed with barbs, and were made from bone or knapped stone. Long, water-hewn stones were sought out from area streams and used as weights at the base of the spear, above the point. These were lashed-on with sinew and rawhide to give the projectile a lot more ´umph´ and distance, when thrown. A big fish has a tough hide, eh. You want that baby to do some penetrating when you heave it.

I thought of this as I stared at the ice. It´s thickening nicely on the lake here at the Rez. Yes´sir, and I also shivered a bit as I pondered. Like I said, Mickey D´s fish sandwich is good enough for me, if it means that I don´t have to freeze my meesies off, shivering out on that ice, waiting for some dumb fish to bite. Yet, ice anglers… they´re already out on area frozen waters, plying their trade. That´s because there´s little upon the Earth Mother that makes an ice fisherman´s heart quicken with glee… like thick ice.

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David Walks-As-Bear is an Inter-Tribal Elder and Kispoko Shawnee Indian. He works as a private game warden and detective and is a novelist and syndicated newspaper columnist living in Northwest Michigan. Contact him at The White Lake Beacon: 231-894-5356 or visit his website at: www.Walks-As-Bear.com