Returning to Maine’s ice fishing brings old surprises to life

By V. Paul Reynolds

For many of us outdoor trippers, it’s simply about the solitude — being out there in the Great Alone. 

Second only to deer hunting, ice fishing is for me the essence of solitude. Check out this photo of an ice fishing hut on Seboeis Lake with Maine’s most famous mountain as a backdrop. The ice fishing hut is mine, and that speck is me drilling holes in the ice on a brutally cold January day about 20 years ago.

Ironically, despite the good fishing and wonderful times, it was not long after this photo was taken that I put my pack basket of tip-ups in storage, gave my ice auger to my sons and escaped with my late wife Diane to the Florida Keys every winter for two decades.

Let’s face it, as you get older some aspects of ice fishing aren’t so much fun, like baiting the hook with your ungloved hands when the northwest wind drives the chill down to 10 below or getting your snowmobile and tote sled stuck in a slush field on the way back to camp and the warming stove.

Looking back, the memories linger and they are all thankfully still crystal clear in my mind’s eye. For the Reynolds, the ice fishing weekends were a family affair. Hauling a tote sled with all our gear including an English Setter, we snowmobiled 13 miles into our camp. We fished, played card games and warmed ourselves with a seafood stew and buttermilk biscuits. The kids loved it, not only for the food but the sheer adventure of it all.

And of course, there was always the unexpected.

Once, when I tried to go around a cow moose on the trail, she side-swiped me, sending me and my gear-loaded sled down an embankment. Not long after that, my son Scotty encountered two moose on the trail while on his way into camp at night. A bull moose charged his snowmobile head-on. Scotty bailed and watched as the big critter took out his wrath on the snowmobile’s windscreen and headlights.

As fate would have it, my ice fishing buddy and I got turned around on Schoodic Lake at night in the midst of one of the worst blizzards of the century. We eventually found our way to the shore and the treeline in zero visibility. It was one of my scariest outdoor experiences. A man perished on the lake that same night, presumably because he, too, could not find his way to the lake shore in the blinding nor’easter.

Life works in mysterious ways. Today, in the twilight of my years, the Florida Keys with its warm breezes and swaying palm trees is behind me. Wintering in Maine once again, I have dusted off my ice fishing tip-ups and purchased a good used snowmobile. When in Rome.

To my surprise and delight, snowmobiling into our camp and ice fishing last winter with my boys, one of whom is nearing retirement, is as much fun as it always was — cold hands or no cold hands.

Now if we can just get an old-fashioned Maine winter with solid ice and a decent snow base.

See you on the ice.

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books. Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com, Outdoor Books.