environment that captivates him and it is the serenity and meditative atmosphere that ice fishing offers that has him hooked, so to speak. Greg was introduced to angling at a young age and remembers with great fondness the first time he followed his father to the Missouri River near Omaha to do some fishing. “I had a Zebco 202 rod and reel and I went to do my first cast and threw the whole fishing pole into the river. My dad snagged it and brought it back in. I was ten years old then and amazed.” That experience and others like it helped create a man that appreciates the sport of fishing whether it be open-water fishing, flyfishing, or ice fishing. Greg began fishing in his mid-twenties, but only for a short while. He took what he refers to as a sabbatical to focus on his business and raising three children. Sure, there were times he would take his family fishing and bestow upon them the knowledge and appreciation for the sport that his father had given him, but life kept him very busy. Twenty-five years later, Greg has returned to fishing with renewed passion for the sport, and a newly acquired ice-fishing partner in his wife Amy, who now accompanies Greg from time-to-time upon icy lakes and rivers. “Amy has her own flasher, poles, coveralls, and she sits out there and loves it. I have a heater in the hut and it is warm. We can sit in there in just shirts and pants.” Now before I go further, I should explain what a flasher is, as well as some of the other tools of the trade used in the sport of ice fishing. A flasher is a device similar to a depth finder. What it does is use sonar technology to enable the fisherman to “see” below the ice. By lowering the transducer or “eye” of the flasher into the icy depths of a lake or river a fisherman can retrieve such data as the depth, variations in the terrain, vegetation, and if there is any fish in the area. The transducer sends the information it collects to a screen in which a fisherman can view what is happening below. The sonar is able to bounce off fish large and small giving the fisherman valuable insight into the area chosen to hopefully catch dinner. Of course flashers vary in price and size and a fisherman could spend a lot of coin to achieve a clearer view of the icy depths below if he or she chose to do so. The hut or ice shanty is a shelter that fisherman use to keep out of the weather and make ice fishing more comfortable. These shelters come in a variety of sizes but all need to be portable and in most cases, lightweight, for transporting on and off the ice. Huts can be made from canvas, nylon, wood, or whatever the fisherman can imagine. They can be furnished with heaters, bunks, grills and even recliners if the fisherman is passionate enough to desire that level of comfort and willing to truck a recliner around on frozen ice! When I think of Ice Shanties I think of the classic movie “Grumpy Old Men” and the ice fishing shanty village portrayed in that film. Wooden shanties along with modified truck campers and garden sheds and anything else suitable enough to keep the chilly fingers of Jack Frost at bay were used in that movie and I always felt that would be a wonderful way to spend some cold winter days. Perched by a Mr. Heater listening to some music or a game on the radio, gently jigging the line of my fishing pole until I either fall asleep or catch a fish. Either way it would be very relaxing. Mr. Stulgies tells me that there are many implements available to make ice fishing more convenient and he has some of them. Motorized ice auger to drill holes, a flasher to pinpoint the fish, two ice huts: one single person, the other large enough for he and his wife to fish in comfortably just to name a few. However, Greg also states that if you are just starting out, none of that is needed. A hand-powered auger, a fifteen-dollar fishing pole, and a bucket to sit on will do. Simple is not bad when it comes to ice fishing. “I ran into a guy last year that was fishing Lake Yankton. He had a couple of older poles and a bucket full of Perch. He had no flasher and was using a hand-powered auger. He left the lake that day with a lot more fish than I did.” Greg and his family make ice-fishing trips during the winter months to Eden, South Dakota, a small town near the South Dakota/ North Dakota border. They have been doing this for the last five years and now that the new season is here, they look forward to making a pilgrimage or two once again. vSTULGIES continued on page 8 HISVOICEvJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019v7