Greetings

You know the characters you meet while ice fishing sure can keep you on your toes. Back in the mid 1980s hand-lining smelts on Sebago Lake was still legal. It seemed like a city of ice shacks all the way from Nason’s Beach to nearby Spider Island and then trickled into Anderson Cove.

Often times you could see big schools of smelts come through and it kept all the fishermen busy. When it slowed down it had meant the big togue were around and had driven out the schools of smelts rendering it slow smelting.

During these slow times some of the boys would seem to get depressed and partake in their favorite alcoholic beverage. Most of the guys behaved themselves pretty well, but others turned into daredevil pranksters.

One such time it was slow fishing, I was patiently staring down my race hole, which was 2 by 6 feet in diameter. All of a sudden below me I could see turbulence in the water and two large forms rapidly approaching my race hole. The next thing I knew I had two young men spring up through the race hole. You talk about being startled out of your boots!

After the initial shock wore off, I discovered I had two nearly naked Nicholas brothers on the floor of my ice shack laughing like hyenas. When they finally caught their breath, the elder brother, Calvin, exclaimed “Hutch, we were a little bored and wondered if you had any extra beer?” The two brothers had disrobed in their ice shack and jumped in the race hole of the shack, took a deep breath, then swam under the ice some 30 yards to my race hole.

Yes at the time it was comical, but reflecting back was that ever a risky prank. Thankfully that event didn’t turn disastrous and the only way they pulled these stunts off is that they both were tremendous athletes and stronger than a pair of oxen.

No one should ever do anything like this for any reason, but no kicking, this happened to me.

Until next time, be safe and have fun.