Kansas Ice Fishing
By Timothy Shue
Kidron, Ohio

    Admitted; it didn't freeze solid enough every winter, and what we caught were no salmon or rainbow trout; (in fact what we caught wasn't even breathing).  But I needn't apologize, it's Kansas, not Manitoba, and it provided all the excitement Rod and I needed.  We were used to doing things a bit unorthodox, so we didn't even think it a bit strange to fish with a hatchet instead of rod and reel.

    We first developed this method on the waterhole east of Pollywog Pond* on the south side of the creek, bordering Gill's barbed wire fence.  We had long been attracted to this hole for its bullfrogs.  It was frozen hard one winter and we ventured out on the ice.  This particular waterhole was too deep, with several trees growing out of it, so we had never swam in it as we did in Pollywog Pond.  With it frozen now, we could finally conquer this water by simply walking on it.

    There was no snow on the ice so we scuttled around cautiously, beating it with branches to insure its thickness and likewise our safety.  Here and there however, we kept noticing these dark shapes, about five inches long.  Drilling and punching with sticks we broke through to discover the shapes were perch, frozen neatly in the ice.  We worked on several more but it took too long to bust through with just sticks.

    Grabbing the fish we chopped out, we ran back to the house.  While Rod filled the downstairs tub with warm water, I searched for a hatchet, for breaking the ice.  The tub of water was for the fish we brought back, hoping they would come back to life when they thawed.  The only thing it changed was their status from being hard dead fish to soft dead fish.

    Working with the hatchet was easy.  In just several strokes, we could chop through, exposing the water.  In a few more, the fish were out in a block of ice that could have been used for an impressive paperweight, provided it didn't melt.  Some fish reached about seven inches, and if one searched the ice carefully, there were many minnows frozen, though they were difficult to spot.

    We continued this, trading the hatchet every other fish, for an hour or so.  Rod was busy working on the last visible fish shadow and he had quite a nice opening in the ice where the black water seeped out.  Both our arms were tired now form swinging but our hopes of finding a bass or channel cat wouldn't let us stop until all were found.  Then, with about three strokes left from chopping out the last fish, Rod's arm swung, but his fatigued grip could not hold the hatchet fast, and it slipped out his fingers and into the depths of the black hole as silent as a bird in flight.  We just looked at each other in amazement.  It was a perfect shot, we both knew that.  It was also Dad's hatchet, and somehow I knew that more than Rod.  But we knew we couldn't retrieve it, the hole had swallowed it like a tar pit, it was gone.  I don't think we ever told Dad, but every time we walked by that waterhole we would point, giggle, and say, "Yep, it's about right there."

* Editor's note: Pollywog Pond was located 1 1/2 miles east of Harper, Kansas on Sand Creek.