Canadian Ice Fishing

by Nikki
(Chofu, Tokyo, Japan)

Only a few weeks ago, I watched a short video on Youtube of a few Canadian ice fishers. In the video, two women were dressed in full winter garb - scarves, jackets, and the like. The setting was a huge lake of frozen ice at least a foot thick, and they were seated on small camping chairs around a large hole in the ice. They were chatting about how there was no fish in the area, and they were having no luck.

Then, an almost nude man climbed out of the hole and talked about how he had swam all the way to a different part of the lake and had no luck there. Throughout the course of the video, three people in total climbed out of the hole with similar claims.

Apart from being totally hilarious, and also very dangerous, I also found the video to be very interesting on a cultural level. It inspired me to do a little bit of research on ice fishing, and found that it is a competitive sport in Canada. Ice fisherman use hand ice augers to manually cut holes in the ice, and then they perch by the holes and fish out of them.

I would love to go ice fishing someday! I'm not sure as to whether or not anywhere in the United States gets cold enough to do so, so I guess I need to make a trip to Canada.