Three local men work to enjoy fishing season
WILTON – Three men wrestled with a shack Friday that they planned to tow onto the ice at Wilson Lake. It didn’t matter that it was freezing and snow was starting to fall. They had ice fishing on their minds.
Ed Smith and Charles Stevens of Wilton and Steve Harris of Chesterville got the 8-by-8-foot wood building with a metal roof off the trailer near the boat launch.
It was on cement and a distance from the ice.
The trio pushed the shack until the door of the building faced the lake, still several feet away.
Stevens and Harris walked to the ramp to plot the launch course.
The building looked like a mini-house complete with primitive windows and a smokestack for a wood stove.
“It’s big and heavy,” Smith said. “We’ll be out here every weekend.”
As if the building wasn’t heavy enough, the men added baskets of fishing traps, a gas auger, wood for fuel, a large hydraulic jack and food.
Smith said it would be nice and warm once the stove got going.
He already imagined eating a hot deer steak while fishing.
Imagination, planning, and checking conditions are a part of ice fishing. Smith said he had checked the ice New Year’s day and it was a foot thick. Add timing to the list.
Smith and his crew wouldn’t be alone out there on the lake. There were already eight to 10 shacks out in the middle of the frozen expanse. He sort of envisioned a small community taking root.
“Once we get it out there, we’ll bring the wives and kids,” Smith said.
The men unhooked the flatbed trailer from the pickup truck and unloaded a Polaris Xplorer, a four-wheeler, and pushed it to the front of the building.
A heavy rope was hooked to a chain attached to the building and then the rope was attached to the four-wheeler.
They were ready.
Smith got on the all-terrain vehicle and revved it up and started to pull.
At first it struggled, smoke was rising, and then the shack started to slide on the runners.
Until it hit the top of the ramp.
It needed to be squared up with the entry point.
All three men and a bystander pushed until it lined up with the ramp.
Smith told the other men to hold it back so it wouldn’t crash into him as he pulled it down the ramp with the four-wheeler.
Stevens didn’t plan to stay for the day, he said, he just came out to help them set up.
After overcoming a few more obstacles, the ice shack slid onto the lake.
The four-wheeler was smoking as it started pulling it across the ice.
The smoke cleared when the shack started gliding. Smith drove while Stevens and Harris walked.
The hard part was nearly over. Only jacking the shack up and sliding blocks underneath it remained.
That way if the ice got slushy, the shack wouldn’t freeze in, Smith said.
After that it would be fishing time: brook trout, salmon, togue, bass and pickerel.
Unless, they decide to move it to another spot like they did the year before three or four times, Smith said.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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