February 2011
Ice King Decoy, 6 Inch Pike
Bear Creek Bait Company
Kaleva, Michigan
1960s
I love the outdoors and love to fish and hunt. It is exciting to see that big buck approaching you when you are sitting in the deer stand or having a bass explode out of the water as he grabs your surface lure. But, nothing gets my heart racing more than seeing that big fish come in your hole when darkhouse spearing….
Darkhouse spearing is usually for targeting Northern Pike, although other species can be speared also. Most of the other species include rough fish such as carp, suckers, and whitefish. What species you can spear depends on your states regulations.
Basically for spearing, you sit in a darkhouse looking down a large hole in the ice. In this hole, you have a decoy or live bait suspended in the hole about halfway down (spearing should be done in 15 feet or less of depth). By your side, you have a barbed fork-like metal spear that is about 4-5 feet long with a rope attached to it. The other end of the rope is tied to your chair or the house itself. When a fish approaches the decoy, you spear it.
Darkhouse spearing is a timeless tradition for many outdoorsman. For these people, time spent on a frozen lake is much more than a pastime, it is a way of life. One person this especially holds true for is my dad, Donald.
When asked when he started spearing, Don simply stated “I guess I was about 10-years-old or so”. With no refrigeration at home, pickled northern was not just a treat…it was a meal. Back then, Don carved his own decoys for spearing. He learned how to carve decoys from his Uncle Bill and they were made out of pine or basswood with cut-up Prince Albert Tobacco cans for the fins and tail. He then painted the decoy himself in colors and designs that were “crude”. But, the decoy didn’t need to be appealing to an art critic…only to fish. His favorite decoy was a small silver one that in his words “caught me a lot of fish”.
When Donald got married and bought a farm, his warm weather fishing was limited as he always seemed to be in the fields, milking cows, or whatever the farm life demanded. However, when winter came…the work was a little less. Yes, there were animals to feed and cows to milk…but some free time was mixed in there. What better way to spend this free time but to head to the lake and get a meal of fish for the family.
My dad is an expert when it comes to spearfishing. He has a few rules that he follows…and if you want to use his fish house, you better follow them too. Some of these rules are:
1) Get your fish house on the lake as soon as it is safe and before anyone else.
2) The spearing hole needs to be large and square with no curves or edges…and cleaned out fully. This allowed for better viewing and the ability to spear fish under the ice (not in the hole).
3) The spear rope was not to be tied to the spear, making a knot. Instead, it was carefully attached by making a long “U” shape and sewing the “U” together with fish line.
4) The spear MUST have sharp points…very sharp.
5) Tie the spear rope to your chair or house before bringing the spear near the open hole. You drop the spear in the hole and lose it…oh my…I don’t know what he would do.
6) No light (sunlight) can enter the darkhouse, hence the name. This makes it easier to see in the hole and doesn’t spook the fish.
7) Sit still or stay home….
8) Hold your live sucker or decoy line in one hand and get ready to “jerk” it if a fish swims in fast to grab it, causing them to miss.
9) Hold your spear in the other hand…always ready…with the spear tines resting on a surface near the hole.
10) Put the spear tines in the water slightly before spearing. Thrust the spear slightly in a downward motion.
11) When you spear, if possible, let the rope slide through your throwing hand. When you hit the fish, grasp the rope to stop the spear from hitting the bottom of the lake. This keeps your hole clear.
12) Never leave anything of value in your fish house when you leave the lake.
And yes, there are many more rules that I won’t go over now…..
If that northern would just stick his lip in the hole…my dad would have him. Many spearfisherman limit their throw to fish totally in the hole, but not him. Spearing fish in view but under the ice takes a special skill. And accurate, yes…he is accurate. Many years ago, we kept track of the fish we speared and who had the best hit/miss percentage. I was having my best year ever and didn’t miss a fish I speared at until the very end of January. This was very good considering I was spearing 2-4 times a week. Well, my dad still did better as he missed his first fish right at the end of the season…and he was spearing more often than me.
My dad primarily uses live bait with a homemade harness wrapped around the bait. This is typically a large sucker minnow. At times, he will use an artificial decoy. His homemade decoys are now gone, 'thanks' to a large garage fire, so his decoy of choice is a Bear Creek Company small pike decoy in perch color like the one pictured above. If the perch color didn’t bring in the fish, he would swap his Bear Creek decoy to red and white.
Bear Creek Bait Company was started by two brothers, Walter and Elmer Witala and a friend named Leo Manilla in 1946. Bear Creek made their decoys under the trademark of Ice King decoys. They first made wooden decoys (Type I) and switched to a hard plastic (Type II) in the 1950s. The style of the decoy changed slightly in the 1960s (Type III). Now, the Ice King decoys are made by K & E Company of Hastings, MI (Type IV). The style my dad uses is the one pictured…a Type III decoy.
The darkhouse and spearing tradition lives on in our family. Of course, my dad still rarely misses a chance to go spearing. My brothers spear along with several of my dad’s grandchildren. I even had my wife try spearing…and she really enjoyed herself. If fact, the first fish she speared was a nice 7 pound northern.
So, for the first time since I started my website, the lure of the month is actually a fish decoy in honor of the best darkhouse spearfisherman I know, my dad, and his favorite commercial decoy.
Don takes a break from spearing and goes for some panfish in the sunset.
