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February 10, 2003 |
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Big Pond Ice Fishing
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A season of winter fun is never truly complete without at least one or two ice-fishing trips. On Saturday, January 25th we hosted a Catskill Center ice-fishing outing at Big Pond, in the Town of Andes, on the Ulster - Delaware County line. Big Pond is a popular local ice-fishing location because it is one of a few lakes that is open to trout fishing in the winter, and the Catskills trout hatchery dumps extra fish in Big Pond each year, including some of their older, larger fish. It is common for fishermen to catch brown trout over five pounds in this lake.
We arrived at Big Pond before 8:00am and pulled all of our gear out onto the ice in a couple of sleds. It was a nice day. Temperatures in the 20’s; not much sun, but not much wind either. It surprised us that so few others were out on such a nice Saturday. We got a workout drilling our fishing holes with the ice auger because the very cold temperatures recently made for ice that was 10-12 inches thick, in addition to the crusted snowdrifts that blanketed the ice. This is thick enough to hold a car or truck according to most ice safety charts (although there are no motor vehicles allowed out on Big Pond). We had to share a limited number of bait minnows that our friends brought with them because when we went to buy bait that morning at Mountaintop Bait in Margaretville we unfortunately found that it had gone out of business. So we set up just enough tip-ups for the amount of bait minnows we had, and also used a couple of jigging rods. New York State law allows each fisherman to have five tip-ups and two jigging rods. A tip-up consists of a spool of fishing line attached to wooden crosspieces that sit over the hole in the ice, and a flag that pops up when a fish takes the bait.
It was a slow day as far as catching fish goes. Our friend Ben caught the one and only fish, a small brown trout about nine inches long. We had fun grilling hot dogs and teaching kids how to ice-fish though. We did speak with a couple other fishermen who had caught some large trout around 7:00am off a small point on the southeastern edge of the lake. With all of their success they were happy to pack it in and head out around noon. We were still in good spirits despite our lack of success, however when things got a little too boring for the kids, we knew it was time to set up the ice-bowling lane. We had brought along a box of real bowling pins, purchased used from Mike at Margaretville Bowl, and a bowling ball. We shoveled a smooth, wide lane on the ice and the kids (and adults) took turns knocking them down. We didn’t think far enough ahead to bring score sheets to know who won, but there’s always next year.
- Chris and Aaron
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