Ice fishing in the Midwest

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Lake Bluff investment banker and longtime angler Grant Chamberlain has never been on the moon. But he said fishing on a frozen lake is something of a lunar experience.

“You’re out there on a frozen, white lake with snow all around,” he said. “You hear the slow creaking of the ice cracking and then, come dusk, you see other fishermen around with their fires burning. It’s primal.”

Chamberlain, 45, grew up fishing during the summer on Lake Michigan near Sheboygan, Wis. He still enjoys reeling in northern pike, walleyes, muskies and pan fish during the warmer months. But when temperatures plummet, he goes ice fishing with the kids in Wisconsin’s Vilas County, near Michigan’s Upper Peninsula border.

Every year, he has more company.

“The winter numbers have been going up a lot over the past five years,” said fishing guide Jason Pertile of Eagle River, Wis. “It’s great for families, too, because you’re not confined to a boat. I can take groups of six or so and the kids can be running around on the ice throwing a football if they want.”

A guide for 15 years, Pertile said about 20 percent of his clients fish in the winter. He provides them with shelter and sustenance in the form of venison brats, burgers, steaks and other food and drink to keep anglers happy. The best time to ice fish generally is soon after sunrise and at dusk.

The body of water Pertile chooses depends on the time of year, the people he’s fishing with and whether the lake is accessible by foot, snowmobile or truck. He typically uses minnows for bait and employs “tip-up” rigs, in which a flag pops up when a fish is on the line.

“The flag coming up is the equivalent of a bobber going underwater,” said Pertile, who fishes mainly for walleyes, northern pike and crappies. The musky season in northern Wisconsin ends Nov. 30, which generally precludes ice fishing for the largest member of the pike family.

Chamberlain hires Pertile as a guide.

“It’s great going fishing with Jason because he sets up a shelter,” Chamberlain said. “And if you drive your truck out on the ice — you can hop in it and warm up if you get too cold. The last few times we’ve gone, we’ve stayed nice and toasty.”

Chamberlain wears warm head gear, insulated boots (complete with foot warmers), gloves (with hand warmers) and several layers of clothes topped off with a wind-and-waterproof jacket and pants.

For him, a big part of ice fishing’s appeal is the lack of competition from other anglers.

For kids, a big part of the appeal is getting “to run round on the ice, checking the ‘tip-up’ flags set over the holes in the ice to see what they’ve caught,” Chamberlain said.

A boy in his posse once pulled up a big walleye that scared him so much, he fell over and scampered away as fast as his little legs could carry him.

“He literally flew backward before running away from the toothy fish,” he said. “You have no idea what you are going to pull up from the lake.”

Whatever it is, chances are it will be tasty.

“You usually end up with delicious fish,” Chamberlain said.

Lance Davenport, whose bushy salt-and-pepper beard makes him look like Nanook of the North, started fishing on frozen water with his dad when he was a 7-year-old growing up in Janesville, Wis.

“I have memories of cold, cold feet,” said Davenport, 62. “But I didn’t want to say anything to my dad because if I complained, I was afraid he wouldn’t take me again.”

Davenport wears warm, insulated boots, plenty of layers and a furry Siberian lamb hood. He doesn’t wear gloves because he wants to feel the fish biting. To keep his hands from freezing, he tucks them inside his sleeves.

Now that the semi-retired Wisconsin special education teacher can set his own schedule, he fishes year round on lakes in the southern part of the Badger State.

“I love it because all my stress, all my problems just seem to go away when I fish,” said Davenport, who is writing a book on winter angling. He plans to call it Legends of the Ice.

He fishes mostly for blue gills and crappies, “because they are such good table fare.”

“Fish out of ice just taste better,” he said. “I believe their flesh is purified in the winter when the water gets colder and the pollutants drop to the bottom of the lakes. Boy, are they delicious.”

Brian E. Clark is a Madison, Wis.-based free-lance writer.