“Trollin’, Trollin’, Trollin’, Wall-eye.”
From the song “Walleye” by The Hula Poppers to the tune of “Rawhide.”
Amy Ryan and Deb Anderson stood beside the purple boa mounted on a fishing pole, its rear end implanted in the ice and waving a pink laminated pennant screaming “Ice Princesses.” The tiaras embedded in their fur hats glittered in the bright sunshine.
“We were co-winners of the Ice Princess Pageant,” said Ryan of Baxter.
“My talent was karaoke,” said Anderson of Crosby.
“I did a dramatic reading from Ice and Men,” Ryan said.
“No one else even tried to compete,” Anderson said.
It’s nice to be royalty, even if it is all in your mind one day a year. The self-proclaimed Ice Princesses, wearing long T-shirts featuring drawings of bikinis over their snowsuits, presided over a kingdom of sorts at the Brainerd Jaycees’ 15th annual $150,000 Ice Fishing Extravaganza on Jan. 22.
Defying a blizzard that raged throughout the state, dedicated and daffy anglers turned out 9,500 strong for the world’s largest ice fishing assemblage, dotting the surface of the 22-inch thick ice of Gull Lake.
Year after year, they come, dreaming of catching the big honking walleye on the 9,400-acre lake, of at least seeing a fish of some kind or of having a heck of an afternoon hanging with buds and guzzling beer. Unless it’s too cold, which can happen in Minnesota in January.
“One year,” said Dan Ridge, a third-year entrant from St. Cloud, “I couldn’t even drink a beer. It would freeze too fast.”
All for a good cause
“Bait `em up, cast ’em out. Cast ’em out, bait ’em up. Wall-eye.”
The week began with a temperature reading of minus 36.
“But it’s supposed to warm up,” organizer Bob Slaybaugh said.
He added the event, which produces a $7 million to $10 million economic impact, has a built-in weather postponement day.
A handful of local residents gave birth to the Ice Fishing Extravaganza while sitting around a hotel room. They drew up a plan on the inside of a carton of a 12-pack of beer. The city has about 14,000 people and the goal was to put that many fishermen on the ice this year.
In 2004, participation was a record 12,000. Each year, when final tabulations are made, more than $100,000 is raised for charity and last year it totaled a record $253,000.
Advance entry in the event costs $35. Last-minute entry costs $45, and 70 percent of the competitors come from within 60 miles of Brainerd, Slaybaugh said. The extravaganza is an outdoor party, the Kentucky Derby infield with more clothes, but the true reason for its popularity is its generosity. About 70 percent of the charity slice goes to the Confidence Learning Center, which provides outdoor education and recreational opportunities for the developmentally disabled.
When longtime fishless participants explain why they keep coming back, they say it is all for a good cause.
“If you come out to catch a fish and win a prize you’re coming for the wrong reasons,” said Mark Urness of Nisswa.
The odds of catching a prize-winning fish during the noon-to-3 p.m. tournament are probably not as good as beating the house in Las Vegas. Urness, who used to live in Chicago, said normally, “on a good day you get two or three walleyes.” That’s without thousands of competing baits.
At the Extravaganza, it is all about catching the biggest single fish and swiftly registering it. In case of a tie of equal weight, the first fish turned in claims the higher place. First place was a 2005 Ford truck. Second prize was a Polaris 500 ATV. But other large prizes were sprinkled around. ATVs were given for the 20th-, 40th-, 50th-, 80th-, 101st-, 125th- and 150th-biggest fish. And 100th place won $10,000 cash.
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The Brainerd spectacular once attracted the attention of National Geographic.
“We actually could almost pick ourselves out by our caps,” said John Kimball of Pequot Lakes, one of Urness’ partners, of an aerial photo in the magazine.
The Brainerd Jaycees’ $150,000 Ice Fishing Extravaganza sounds like something that used to air at 3 a.m. in the early days of ESPN. But the world of sports has changed dramatically in the last quarter century and people’s tastes seem piqued more by the non-traditional. The Jaycees have sought genuine Guinness Book of World Records recognition, Slaybaugh said, but no dice yet.
At a dinner the evening before this year’s Extravaganza, hand warmers were distributed on bread plates as party favors.
“Well, it is an ice-fishing banquet,” Slaybaugh said. “It’s a good amenity. It will melt your butter for you.”
Word spread that 140 volunteers had cut 20,000 holes in the ice. Brainerd was ready to go fishing. Only the fast-falling snow concerned organizers. A meeting was held. Should they hold off a day, fall back to emergency Sunday? No. Those who braved the storm should take higher priority. Fish on.
It all comes together
“Gut ’em out, fry ’em up. Fry ’em up, gut ’em out. Wall-eye.”
If the Extravaganza is the Super Bowl of ice fishing, then transporting thousands of people to the lake is the Olympics of traffic control. More than 40 school buses took participants to the fishing site one-third of a mile offshore.
It was 10 degrees and sunny, with wind from the north, when the anglers began arriving three hours before the cannon signaling the fish-a-thon would sound.
Len Engman, a painter from Brainerd, wore a ski mask as protection against the elements.
“I’m keeping it on all day,” he said.
The movie “Grumpy Old Men” established the image of ice fishing in shanties equipped with TV sets, heaters and furniture. But under tournament rules, no one is allowed to set up a structure or wind break because fishermen must stay visible. It is a safeguard against cheaters. Slaybaugh said polygraphs are on site and tests have been given on the ice. No one ever has failed a polygraph, he said.
A group of five pals, most of whom have fished the event for more than a decade, planted an American flag in the ice and asked passersby of prominence–such as the Ice Princesses–to autograph their wooden gear chest. None of the five ever has caught a fish in the tournament, but they keep coming back.
“We get to fish with 10,000 of our friends,” said Don Anderson of Pelican Rapids.
Not to mention drink beer, chew on hot dogs, buy hand-made fish hats, gaze at new wonders in ice-fishing products and listen to world famous fishing tunes on a loudspeaker. Just before noon, musicus interruptus led to a countdown and a cannon blast.
“At noon the cannon goes off and 13,000 lines drop in the water,” said Bruce Olson of Geneva, Ill. “If you were a fish, what would you do?”
Run the other way.
Only not fast enough. Astonishingly, within seconds, fishermen sprinted from their holes to the weigh-in station. Startled fish struck back at dropped jigs, were hooked, hauled out and carted out of the water. Within 10 minutes, the first 100 fish tickets were handed out. It was a stampede and the sign-in line grew and grew, extending across the ice.
Marty Chisholm of Baxter gripped a big walleye. How long did it take to catch?
“One beer,” said Chisholm, gasping for air after his run across the ice. “Not even that.”
The 3.02-pound fish was the second-biggest and won Chisholm an ATV. In all, 904 fish were registered, with 150th place a .43-pound walleye. But the champ was Sara Kitzman, 24, of St. Cloud. Her 3.71-pound walleye won the truck.
“I’m pumped,” Kitzman said.
No one, however, was a more surprising winner than fifth-place Hermene Anderson with her 1.73-pound tulibee. Anderson grew up in New York City, lives in Sarasota, Fla., was in Minnesota for a month because of her husband’s business and found the Extravaganza on the Internet. She won an augur, which could assist her sandcastle building.
Until that very morning Anderson had never walked on a frozen lake.
“I was scared,” said Anderson, who nonetheless blended right in, wearing a Vikings helmet with white horns. “It’s just amazing. I’m going to come here every year for this fishing contest.”
That might qualify her as an honorary Ice Princess.