FISHING AT THE LAKE

Fishing Through tbe Ice, One of the Causes Which Tends to Spoil it, Prevented by the Weather.

The Arlington Hotel at Maxinkuckee will open the 16th of this month and usually about that time the spring fishing begins though it is variable and uncertain until the first week in May.

Tbe prospects are better for good fishing this spring than for many years.

There has been no ice in the lake and consequently no spearing or fishing through the ice.

This, next to the spearing, does more to destroy the fishing than any other one thing.

Fishing through the ice is a matter of business. Few men find the amusement sufficiently exciting to pay for the exposure on the cold winter days and the fish are caught for market.

The method is interesting.

A shed, open on one side and containing a small stove, is equipped with a pair of runners and dragged to a good fishing spot where it is anchored with the open side from the wind.

Numerous holes are then cut at points from forty to fifty feet apart and pronged sticks are stuck in the ice around them. To the sticks are stuck reels with thirty or forty feet of line on them. The hooks are then baited and let down through the holes and the fishermen retire to the shed to indulge in a game of seven- up.

If the point selected is a favorable one there will presently be a buzzing of a reel as a splendid bass starts with the bait. Perhaps another will follow quickly and the men be kept busy running from one hole to another hauling in the victims.

Occasionally a tour is made and new ice forming over the holes is broken and fresh bait put on. This is kept up from day to day and engaged in by dozens of men living around the lake who have no other occupation in the dull winter days.

As is easily seen the catch is enormous and thousands of fish find their way to the city tables by this unpleasant route every winter instead of being allowed to accept the invitation of amateurs in the spring.

The State fish commissioner took steps last year to stop the spearing.

This with the absence of ice fishing indicates that those who devote a day to the fascinating sport this winter will not return home empty handed nor be compelled to retain the respect of the members of their family by pending a few dollars at a fish market -- Logansport Daily Tribune Apr. 13 1980