By Joe Picotte
The sun crests over the trees as a lone ice shack sits isolated apart from the rest of the group, a four-wheeler parked next to the door. It's mid-January, and the temperature hovers in the mid-teens while a light snow falls. People and shacks come and go as the day stretches on, but one remains ever still with nary a sound heard.
Inside a lone angler sits in a lawn chair, hunched over staring down a 2'x4' hole cut in the ice to the bottom below. He raises and lowers a thin line attached to a 9" wooden Perch decoy, swimming it in continual small steady circles while watching for any sign of movement below. Suddenly, a large Northern Pike glides into the hole, stopping a foot from the decoy and watching intently while its fins flip back and forth. The angler, recovering from a momentarily skipped heartbeat, lessens his grip on the decoy line and leans to grab the metal handle of the pike spear propped in the corner. Easing the spearhead and 7” sharp tines into the water just below the surface, the angler lines up directly over the fish and with a sharp shove sends the spear down. With the thrashing of sand on the bottom comes a smile to the angler's face, and a pike on the end of the spear.
Pike spearing has been around with a large following in the Upper Peninsula for over 100 years. While participant numbers continue to lower each year, every winter anglers young and old look forward to getting back on the ice and into their shacks for the chance to experience this unique and exciting winter sport. Areas like Munuscong Bay, the Les Cheneaux Islands, and Manistique Lakes all have good-sized populations of spear shacks, also known as dark houses. You aren't likely to find a spear anglers shack in a group, but off by themselves in a quieter area.
The equipment used is as varied as a fisherman's tacklebox, everything from $10 commercially made plastic decoys to $100+ hand carved and painted wooden decoys are available. Most serious spearers have a collection of decoys in a variety of colors and sizes. Spears can be purchased relatively cheaply around $50, while premium spears can cost $1000. While most think of a spear shack as a wood-sided permanent shack setup for days or weeks at a time, spearing can easily be done from a portable shack. Cutting the hole with a spud bar, ice auger, ice saw or even chainsaw, once the hole is cut a set of ice tongs is used to lift the block out onto the ice and slide it off to the side. Once the shack is set up and the slush scooped from the hole, it's time to sit and watch.
Spearing has been referred to as the closest thing to deer hunting one can enjoy, and I tend to agree. The first time you watch a pike glide into the hole and stare down the decoy is something I personally haven't forgotten and look forward to every season. The chance to watch fish interact with the decoy, and the ability to simply let the fish swim by without throwing the spear (Look & Release), is the part that keeps you staring down the hole into the depths of the bay, swimming the decoy ever constant, waiting for the next fish to appear in your window in the ice. If it's a sport you haven't tried yet, get out this winter and enjoy some quality time in Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula, God's Country. Good Fishing.