Lifestyles

Renaissance Redneck: Of ice fishing and hot rods

By DAVID KITTREDGE
This morning, I decided to take a ride over to the state beach in Sunapee to see if there were any bob houses perched on the lake. There were three ice fishing shacks sitting on the sidelines in anticipation but none were actually on the ice. I didn’t even see any craters rimmed with extracted ice, so no one had even walked out on the thin ice to fish recently. We need a prolonged cold snap to make ice for it to be safe enough to fish on, not that I myself am wishing for colder weather. At this point in my life, I would just as soon settle for fish sticks if I had my druthers.

I recall the day years ago when a group of us went ice fishing before the New Year had arrived. It had been an unusually bitter cold December, so we had made plans to go to Lake Eastman to fish. One of the guys, Patrick, had invited the bartender, named Sammy, from the China Jade Restaurant to go along with us. Sammy an immigrant from China loved to eat fish was excited to come along and actually have the chance to catch his own. Patrick had explained to him that he was to dress in his warmest winter clothing to ensure his being comfortable while standing on the pond. Sammy showed up at Patrick’s house, but apparently something had been lost in translation. He had no hat or gloves, he was wearing a dress shirt with only a thin wind breaker over it, dress pants, and dress shoes with leather soles. Patrick, being a full bore Irishman with a good heart, mildly scolded him in a friendly way and then brought Sammy into his house and got him properly outfitted. Luckily the two men were about the same size. We had a good time and good luck on the ice that day. We all donated our individual catches to Sammy when we arrived back in town. He had a smile on his face for most of the day, but when we filled a couple of buckets for him with the day’s total catch he was grinning from ear to ear.

Another day a few years later, my father and I were invited to ice fish on Perkins Pond with his friend Eugene. It was early February, but the day was sunny and relatively warm. We were all gathered around telling “old war stories,” which didn’t actually involve war if you know what I mean, and telling each other jokes. At one point, my father wandered off to check his tilts and the bait on his lines. When he got back to our group he suddenly yelled out “What is that?” and pointed. We were all a bit startled, but looked in the direction he had pointed to and there was a black silhouette of a critter standing beside one of his holes in the ice. As it started to register in our minds that the critter was a mammal of some kind standing very still and erect, my father yelled out, “The groundhog has seen his shadow and we are going to have six more weeks of winter!” The date was Feb. 2. My father had totally pranked us. He had set a black poster board cut out of a woodchuck by a hole in the ice, it was classic.

Back in the 1940s, my grandfather Kittredge and my teenaged father had decided to ice fish on Lake Sunapee. My grandfather wanted to try a fishing spot further out on the lake than they normally fished. He had also decided that he didn’t want to waste time walking to the intended spot and started to drive onto the ice in the family car. A few yards from shore, my young father asked if the ice was thick enough to hold the car and my grandfather reassured him that it was safe enough, but just in case they happened to drive over a thin spot that they should open the doors of the car and leave them wide open. My father then asked how this was going to help and his father explained that if the car started to submerge through the ice the open doors would allow them to jump out and that they wouldn’t be trapped in the car. Never, when I ice fished with my father, did he ever drive his car onto the ice.

Speaking of driving a vehicle on the ice, I recall seeing television news pieces about Russ Francis who played tight end for the New England Patriots. Francis loved classic hot rods and he loved ice fishing. So, he being the fun-loving character that he is, Francis decided to combine the two seemingly, diametrically opposed hobbies. He had a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe, one of the penultimate icons of hot rodding which he turned into a mobile bob house for fishing. The two front bucket seats were made to swivel one hundred and eighty degrees and the back seat was eliminated. Two holes were cut into the rear passenger floor for access to fish through. Francis would cut two carefully measured holes through the ice and then drive his car into position over them and voila, instant bob house.

I daresay that no matter how much my father enjoyed football, souped up hot rods or ice fishing that he would have never wanted to fish with Russ Francis in his 57 Chevy.

Avatar photo

As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.