- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,179
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
“Big Al” Macintyre’s ice-fishing hut on Bait Shop Bay at Petrie Island resembles a woodsy, one-room cabin. There are red-and-green plaid curtains on the windows and an oil stove for warmth. Hank Williams is playing on the radio. Affixed to the walls are a No Trespassing sign warning that hunters will be prosecuted; a framed ad for an ice-fishing derby; an oversized Red Devil fishing lure; a Montreal Canadiens’ logo; a scale for weighing fish; an old black-and-white photo of an ice-fisherman; a small flat-screen TV; rusted Ontario licence plates from the 1930s; a flat Macdonald’s cigarettes tin; a dry pair of socks; a taxidermied bear head and a stuffed lake trout that appears to have missed very few meals.
Big Al leans back and begins to tell of the day the bear came after him while he had the trout on his line, but soon stumbles over his own tale: “I bought them both,” he admits.
Two tables with bench seats fill most of the room. In the daytime, the tables hold all manner of propane stoves, ashtrays and crossword puzzle magazines, while the benches seat numerous friends and neighbours who chance by to visit and, on game days and nights, to watch hockey. Later on, the tables drop down as needed to make sleeping accommodations for up to a handful of people, the actual number depending on the intimacy needs/restrictions of each.
Petrie Island Ice Fishermen’s Association president ‘Big Al’ Macintyre in his fishing hut, where he frequently entertains neighbours in his hut where a a bear head and stuffed trout hang on the wall.
Underneath Big Al’s man hut, meanwhile, is about a foot of ice, and under that, roughly six feet of water. It’s in those waters that roam the winter-stuporous pickerel, pike, walleye, perch and crappies that all largely manage to avoid the scores of minnows attached to hooks attached to lines attached to fishing rods and tip-ups — the latter levered wooden rods that serve as the winter equivalent of bobbers, letting fisherpeople know when they have a bite. The fish mostly avoid all this until, these same fisherpeople say, around 4 p.m., when hunger gives in to temptation and the fish start biting.
Big Al has four holes drilled and lines baited, but it’s only two in the afternoon, so he lights another smoke and looks out the window, just to be sure he hasn’t caught something.
“This is the best part of ice fishing,” he says. “The waiting.”
A wintertime look at Petrie Island's Bait Shop Bay, where residents Eastern Ontario's largest ice-fishing village wait for the Big One.
There are about 120 ice-fishing huts on Bait Shop Bay, a narrow stretch of the Ottawa River between Orléans and Petrie Island, along Trim Road. It’s a far cry from the dozen that were there 15 or 20 years ago when Big Al, a Rockland resident for nearly 35 years, first set up his shack. Advertised as Eastern Ontario’s largest ice-fishing village, the huts — old trailers, makeshift plywood boxes, metal containers and small cabins, like Big Al’s — are mostly privately owned, although the specific bait shop for which the bay is generically named, Oziles (a play on the French expression “aux îles”), rents out eight to day fishers, overnighters and curious tourists.
Founding president of the Petrie Island Ice Fishermen’s Association, Big Al is 66 and retired from hotel marketing, and now spends most of his winters on the ice. He first tried the sport as a 10-year-old on the lakes surrounding Sudbury, when his dad and uncle would simply drive the car out on the ice.
“I loved it,” he recalls. “You’re outside, seeing different animals on the ice — foxes, deer. I’m an outdoors guy. I pretty well live here now.”
There are close to 120 ice-fishing huts at Petrie Island. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
He says that the waiting is the best part, but it’s really what you do during the waiting that matters. In Big Al’s case, it’s the social side of ice fishing that occupies most of his time, and he seems very much the bay’s version of the King of Kensington, holding court in a community where people come to know one another better than neighbours in the city.
“I love meeting people that you would not normally meet,” he says. “Down here, you’ve got everything; you’ve got cops here, contractors, defence guys, lawyers, retired guys, real estate people — all kinds of different people, all with the one interest of just coming down here, having a good time, having fun fishing, and socializing, I guess.”
Membership in PIIFA entitles fisherpeople to little more than an identifying sticker to put on the door of their shacks, but that sticker opens doors, so to speak, indicating who’s likely to lend you a ladder, auger, minnow or beer.
Just like in cottage country, signs at Petrie Island direct visitors to particular ice-fishing huts. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Most are older white men and French Canadian, says Big Al, but the sport attracts more women and younger adults than one might suspect. At last year’s Feb. 15 derby, almost as many youngsters (23) as adults (27) took part. The largest pike caught that day was 35-inches long, while a foot-long walleye was the largest from its family. This year’s derby takes place Feb. 7.
When youngsters at Petrie Island tire of ice fishing, there are three rinks where they can skate and play hockey. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
And while weekdays can be quiet with mostly handfuls of retirees and renters out on the ice and the majority of the huts sitting idle, the place bustles on weekends with numerous families joining in. There are three skating rinks — one with hockey nets — and a shortened curling sheet with concrete-filled Javex bottles for rocks. Snowmobilers whiz by while others set up worktables on which they hammer and saw and make improvements to their shacks. A sign outside one small hut, the only visible commercial venture on the ice, advertises “ARCADE.” Behind it, a gas generator chugs along, while inside, a heater and four stand-up, coin-op video games do their best to attract customers. According to operator Emile Drouin, an avid ice fisherman who owns A4A Amusements, the on-ice arcade may be a first in Canada — or anywhere.
Brothers Kai, in foreground, and Josh Parisien were the first to try Petrie Island’s four-game, on-ice arcade, which operator Emile Drouin believes is a first for Canada, and perhaps anywhere. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
“This is like a summer trailer park,” Big Al explains. “Everybody knows everybody, everybody gets set up, they get their own little spots and it just keeps growing and growing.”
And so it goes. On a recent weekend, one rental hut was bursting with more than 20 people — friends and neighbours from a half dozen Lebanese families who spend one day annually at Petrie Island — ostensibly ice fishing, but more obviously drumming, singing, eating, laughing and smoking flavoured tobacco from a water pipe.
“It’s been going on for five years,” explains Eli Njain. “It started so we could show our children what ice fishing was.”
Nearby, Normand Roy and Anne Gammon entertain Eloiane Gateau, a friend visiting from France. “We wanted to show her how Canadians spend their winters,” says Gammon.
Elsewhere, Mario Croft has raised $900 for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario by auctioning off six days of ice fishing to his co-workers at DND, and is busy barbecuing lunch for a colleague and her family. At last year’s derby, Croft’s six-inch catch was the day’s smallest.
As with cottagers, many ice-fishermen and -women name their buildings. This Petrie Island hut, owned by Newfoundland expats, is named ‘Stagger Inn’ and waves that province’s flag. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Chimneys tell you who’s home and who’s not, and whether they use wood or oil to stay warm. Like summer cottages, many huts are named. A group of Maritime expats fly the Newfoundland flag over their shanty, named Stagger Inn. Not far away, Brian Massé wears his heritage on his hut, Le Gaspésie.
Like Big Al, Massé loves the social side of ice fishing. His hut boasts a somewhat larger TV, in front of which neighbours regularly gather to watch Sens’ games or play cards. “I bring the Bell receiver from home,” he says. “My wife wanted to switch to a different provider that’s cheaper, but I said we can’t; I wouldn’t be able to get the games here.”
Brian Masse enjoys a cold one in his ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island. On nights when Senators’ games are televised, neighbours will drop by to watch. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Most of the huts are far more ramshackle and not everyone buys into the social club atmosphere, at least not all the time. Damien Collins showed up at 6:30 on a bitterly cold and blustery Friday morning recently, setting up a nylon one-man pup tent that he uses when the winds get too fierce. He likes ice fishing’s social side — “We’re all here after the same things,” he says. “Big fish, some beer and good times” — but adds he’s especially drawn by the solitude.
“I like to come with my dog, Ranger. I just like to think and have time to myself before going back to the concrete jungle.”
A ‘donkey’ is a small shelter used to keep out of the cold and wind. At Petrie Island, they’re typically carried or dragged out to ‘the drop’ where the island’s bays meet the Ottawa River current. Large fish are usually caught there. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
The 28-year-old Ottawa resident and landscape/construction worker has fished at Petrie Island pretty much every day this season, his first year back on the ice since driving by recently and reminding himself he liked doing it when he was a seven- or eight-year-old. He just bought a small, collapsible shack — often called a “donkey” — for $175 and might start staying overnight with a sleeping bag and a heat pad or two.
“My first day here, I sat outside for 11 hours with no tent or hut. It’s more for the peace of mind; the fish are a bonus, just like the beer.”
Allan Veillette and Matt Sharpe do what every ice-fisherman does: they wait. And while they wait they enjoy a cold Budweiser. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Only steps, away, it’s a slightly different story. Allan Veillette and Matt Sharpe sit in Veillette’s $125 hut, essentially a narrow and enclosed bench that looks like a failed prototype for a duck blind, with two fishing holes, a propane heater and bottles of Budweiser chilling on the icy floor. Here, the solitude is pretty much non-existent, as Veillette pleads into his cellphone for a friend to forget about having a shower, and come now, with beer, instead.
As for their catch, Collins will take his home to cook for himself, his girlfriend and Ranger. Veillette and Sharpe will more likely throw theirs back. “The best part of ice fishing,” says Veillette, “is the beer. You want one?” It is 10:30 a.m.
Then there are the serious ice fishermen, like Jacques Côté, whose plot of ice surrounding his uncluttered and sparsely functional hut is neatly shoveled, and who typically won’t drop a line outside his shack until closer to 4 p.m., even if he’s been there for hours. More likely, though, sundown will find him dragging a sled of equipment further out into the river to The Drop, where the calmer shallows surrounding Petrie Island meet the deeper, swifter current, where the big fish live.
He keeps a calendar on which he records his pickerel catch each day: how many and any of notable size. In the 16 days he fished through the last three weeks of December, he caught 39, the largest weighing five pounds.
He prefers ice fishing — hardwater fishing it’s sometimes called — to summer fishing, because he doesn’t have to spend all that time in a boat. “In the winter, the pickerel bite at sundown, so I fish from 4:30 to 5:30 — that’s it. I catch all these fish inside an hour and hour-and-a-half.”
Petrie Island ice fisherman Jacques Cote keeps track of how many fish he catches each day, and any of notable size. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
He takes his In-Fisherman Solunar Calendar, the ice fisherman’s equivalent of a Farmer’s Almanac, down from a shelf. In it, each day is colour-coded to reveal its ice-fishing worthiness. “Look!” he says. “They’re going to start biting tomorrow, and all next week is supposed to be really good.”
“Is this always reliable?” I ask.
“No.”
They say you don’t fish for the fish, but for the fishing. It’s a sentiment that seems even truer when it comes to ice fishing, where there’s far less active time fishing and much more time not really fishing.
Ryan O’Connell and Michael Killeen outside the Petrie Island fishing hut they rented for a day. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Michael Killeen and Ryan O’Connell spent most of a recent Friday sitting in lawn chairs by their fishing holes. Each was dressed in some serious looking winter wear, and so largely avoided the inside of their toasty, rented hut. By noon, the pair had caught just one small walleye, a paltry bounty that was sadly one fish better than their afternoon harvest. They were joined at lunch by another friend, Andrew “The Cooler” Collicott, whose nickname he derived from his friends’ failure to get even a nibble after he arrived.
Eric Desbiens shows the pair of walleye he caught outside his Petrie Island ice-fishing hut. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Still, they agreed, it was a fine day. “A bad day on the water is still better than a good day at work,” says Killeen. “It’s the brotherhood and sisterhood of fishing; it brings people together.” They spent the day discussing favourite movies (“We talked about Rambo a lot”), the speeding tickets that each did or didn’t get in other countries, and waited for the Big One that never came.
“I love coming out because we talk about everything and nothing,” says Collicott. “It’s the opposite of what today’s society is: there are no apps, we actually wave to people who walk by and chat with people we don’t normally talk to. Whereas back in the world, we’re on our phones and we ignore each other.”
“And on our way home,” adds O’Connell, “we’ll stop at Loblaws, buy some fish and tell our wives we caught them.”
Visit oziles.ca and piifa.ca for more information.
bdeachman@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
Big Al leans back and begins to tell of the day the bear came after him while he had the trout on his line, but soon stumbles over his own tale: “I bought them both,” he admits.
Two tables with bench seats fill most of the room. In the daytime, the tables hold all manner of propane stoves, ashtrays and crossword puzzle magazines, while the benches seat numerous friends and neighbours who chance by to visit and, on game days and nights, to watch hockey. Later on, the tables drop down as needed to make sleeping accommodations for up to a handful of people, the actual number depending on the intimacy needs/restrictions of each.
Petrie Island Ice Fishermen’s Association president ‘Big Al’ Macintyre in his fishing hut, where he frequently entertains neighbours in his hut where a a bear head and stuffed trout hang on the wall.
Underneath Big Al’s man hut, meanwhile, is about a foot of ice, and under that, roughly six feet of water. It’s in those waters that roam the winter-stuporous pickerel, pike, walleye, perch and crappies that all largely manage to avoid the scores of minnows attached to hooks attached to lines attached to fishing rods and tip-ups — the latter levered wooden rods that serve as the winter equivalent of bobbers, letting fisherpeople know when they have a bite. The fish mostly avoid all this until, these same fisherpeople say, around 4 p.m., when hunger gives in to temptation and the fish start biting.
Big Al has four holes drilled and lines baited, but it’s only two in the afternoon, so he lights another smoke and looks out the window, just to be sure he hasn’t caught something.
“This is the best part of ice fishing,” he says. “The waiting.”
-
Some of the more than 20 people, all friends of Lebanese descent, who annually rent an ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island and spend the day fishing, singing, eating (steak, not fish) and enjoying each others' company. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman 
Phil Cousineau sips a warm drink while attending to his lines. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Jacques Cot¾© drags a sled of equipment from Bait Shop Bay at Petrie Island, where his ice-fishing hut is located, over a spit of land and towards the Ottawa River, where he'll try his luck at 'the drop,' where the river's current is fastest and the fish larger. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
An ice fisherman off Petrie Island patiently watches his lines for signs of a bite.
Bruce Deachman / Ottawa Citizen
Ice fishermen and women brave colder, stronger winds, and less certain ice thickness, the further they venture out onto the Ottawa River. The payoff is typically larger catches. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Some ice fishermen at Petrie Island built a fire for warmth, while in the distance one sits by his holes waiting for a nibble. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Ice fishing and its attendant winter activities makes it about as social and you can get on frozen water. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Five-year-old Melodie Bisaillon checks a line to make sure it still has a minnow on it. (In her left hand she holds a dead minnow). (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
A four-pound Northern Pike caught by Marc Latreille sits frozen on the hood of his truck. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
When youngsters at Petrie Island tire of ice fishing, there are three rinks where they can skate and play hockey. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
There are close to 120 ice-fishing huts at Petrie Island. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Among the non-fishing activities available at Petrie Island during the winter is curling. Claude Brisson has built a 45-foot sheet, as well as a skating rink, outside his hut. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Ice-fishing huts at Petrie Island. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Brian Mass¾© checks his lines to ensure that each still has a minnow on it. The ladle is used to scoop away ice forming on top of each. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
As with cottagers, many ice-fishermen and -women name their buildings. This Petrie Island hut, owned by Newfoundland expats, is named 'Stagger Inn' and waves that province's flag. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Jacques Cot¾© installs tip-ups outside his ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Petrie Island ice fisherman Jacques Cot¾© keeps track of how many fish he catches each day, and any of notable size. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
A sign hanging in the hut of an ice-fisherman at Petrie Island. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Ottawa Citizen
A 'donkey' is a small shelter used to keep out of the cold and wind. At Petrie Island, they're typically carried or dragged out to 'the drop' where the island's bays meet the Ottawa River current. Large fish are usually caught there. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Sylvain Perrier in his ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island. There's one hole on his right, with a bell attached to the rod to let him know if he's caught anything. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Petrie Island Ice Fishing Association president 'Big Al' Macintyre in his fishing hut, where he frequently entertains neighbours and looks out the windows to see if any fish are biting. 'Waiting is the best part,' he says. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Big Al Macintyre is president of the Petrie Island Ice Fishing Association. His hut resembles a warm, cosy cottage. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Operator Emile Drouin shovels in front of his on-ice video arcade at Petrie Island - a first in Canada, and possibly the world, he believes - while a gas generator behing the hut keeps the four games running. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Hunter Barrett and Brayden Mass¾© take a break from ice fishing to enjoy a lunch of pizza. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Brayden Mass¾© and Hunter Barrett check their fishing lines at Petrie Island. When the pair gets bored, they'll strap on their skates on one of the community's three rinks. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
One of Petrie Island's regular ice fishermen describes the 120-hut community as 'a winter version of a trailer park.' The decor is often quite similar. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Just like in cottage country, signs at Petrie Island direct visitors to particular ice-fishing huts. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Fishing huts at Petrie Island come in all shapes and (small) sizes, including converted campers, pup tents and slapdash plywood structures. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Wally the Walleye, a popular float in Orl¾©ans' Santa Claus Parade, is also an ice-fishing hut. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Some ice-fishing huts at Petrie Island are ramshackle, others are done up like cottages. A few fall somewhere in between. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Matt Sharpe drills a hole for fishing in one of Petrie Island's smaller huts. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Allan Veillette and Matt Sharpe do what every ice-fisherman does: they wait. And while they wait they enjoy a cold Budweiser. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Allan Veillette and Matt Sharpe in Veillette's ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island. The hut, which Veillette bought this season for $125, consists of little more than a bench, a propane heater, two holes for fishing and a case of Budweiser. The beer, he insists, is the best part of fishing. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Brian Mass¾© enjoys a cold one in his ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island. On nights when Senators' games are televised, neighbours will drop by to watch. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Anne Gammon and Normand Roy rented an ice-fishing hut for the day to show Eloiane Gateau, right, who is visiting Canada from France, what Canadians do during the winter. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Brothers Kai, in foreground, and Josh Parisien were the first to try Petrie Island's four-game, on-ice arcade, which operator Emile Drouin believes is a first for Canada, and perhaps anywhere. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Sylvain Perrier shows a photo of himself with a pike he recently caught. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Ryan O'Connell and Michael Killeen outside the Petrie Island fishing hut they rented for a day. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Eric Desbiens shows the pair of walleye he caught outside his Petrie Island ice-fishing hut. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
Once the bait is set, many fishermen and women prefer to stay in their warm huts and watch their lines from there. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Bruce Deachman
For the past five years, a half dozen Lebanese families have rented an ice-fishing hut for a day, where they fish, sing and eat (steak, not fish). (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Bruce Deachman / Ottawa Citizen
A wintertime look at Petrie Island's Bait Shop Bay, where residents Eastern Ontario's largest ice-fishing village wait for the Big One.
There are about 120 ice-fishing huts on Bait Shop Bay, a narrow stretch of the Ottawa River between Orléans and Petrie Island, along Trim Road. It’s a far cry from the dozen that were there 15 or 20 years ago when Big Al, a Rockland resident for nearly 35 years, first set up his shack. Advertised as Eastern Ontario’s largest ice-fishing village, the huts — old trailers, makeshift plywood boxes, metal containers and small cabins, like Big Al’s — are mostly privately owned, although the specific bait shop for which the bay is generically named, Oziles (a play on the French expression “aux îles”), rents out eight to day fishers, overnighters and curious tourists.
Founding president of the Petrie Island Ice Fishermen’s Association, Big Al is 66 and retired from hotel marketing, and now spends most of his winters on the ice. He first tried the sport as a 10-year-old on the lakes surrounding Sudbury, when his dad and uncle would simply drive the car out on the ice.
“I loved it,” he recalls. “You’re outside, seeing different animals on the ice — foxes, deer. I’m an outdoors guy. I pretty well live here now.”
There are close to 120 ice-fishing huts at Petrie Island. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
He says that the waiting is the best part, but it’s really what you do during the waiting that matters. In Big Al’s case, it’s the social side of ice fishing that occupies most of his time, and he seems very much the bay’s version of the King of Kensington, holding court in a community where people come to know one another better than neighbours in the city.
“I love meeting people that you would not normally meet,” he says. “Down here, you’ve got everything; you’ve got cops here, contractors, defence guys, lawyers, retired guys, real estate people — all kinds of different people, all with the one interest of just coming down here, having a good time, having fun fishing, and socializing, I guess.”
Membership in PIIFA entitles fisherpeople to little more than an identifying sticker to put on the door of their shacks, but that sticker opens doors, so to speak, indicating who’s likely to lend you a ladder, auger, minnow or beer.
Just like in cottage country, signs at Petrie Island direct visitors to particular ice-fishing huts. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Most are older white men and French Canadian, says Big Al, but the sport attracts more women and younger adults than one might suspect. At last year’s Feb. 15 derby, almost as many youngsters (23) as adults (27) took part. The largest pike caught that day was 35-inches long, while a foot-long walleye was the largest from its family. This year’s derby takes place Feb. 7.
When youngsters at Petrie Island tire of ice fishing, there are three rinks where they can skate and play hockey. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
And while weekdays can be quiet with mostly handfuls of retirees and renters out on the ice and the majority of the huts sitting idle, the place bustles on weekends with numerous families joining in. There are three skating rinks — one with hockey nets — and a shortened curling sheet with concrete-filled Javex bottles for rocks. Snowmobilers whiz by while others set up worktables on which they hammer and saw and make improvements to their shacks. A sign outside one small hut, the only visible commercial venture on the ice, advertises “ARCADE.” Behind it, a gas generator chugs along, while inside, a heater and four stand-up, coin-op video games do their best to attract customers. According to operator Emile Drouin, an avid ice fisherman who owns A4A Amusements, the on-ice arcade may be a first in Canada — or anywhere.
Brothers Kai, in foreground, and Josh Parisien were the first to try Petrie Island’s four-game, on-ice arcade, which operator Emile Drouin believes is a first for Canada, and perhaps anywhere. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
“This is like a summer trailer park,” Big Al explains. “Everybody knows everybody, everybody gets set up, they get their own little spots and it just keeps growing and growing.”
And so it goes. On a recent weekend, one rental hut was bursting with more than 20 people — friends and neighbours from a half dozen Lebanese families who spend one day annually at Petrie Island — ostensibly ice fishing, but more obviously drumming, singing, eating, laughing and smoking flavoured tobacco from a water pipe.
“It’s been going on for five years,” explains Eli Njain. “It started so we could show our children what ice fishing was.”
Nearby, Normand Roy and Anne Gammon entertain Eloiane Gateau, a friend visiting from France. “We wanted to show her how Canadians spend their winters,” says Gammon.
Elsewhere, Mario Croft has raised $900 for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario by auctioning off six days of ice fishing to his co-workers at DND, and is busy barbecuing lunch for a colleague and her family. At last year’s derby, Croft’s six-inch catch was the day’s smallest.
As with cottagers, many ice-fishermen and -women name their buildings. This Petrie Island hut, owned by Newfoundland expats, is named ‘Stagger Inn’ and waves that province’s flag. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Chimneys tell you who’s home and who’s not, and whether they use wood or oil to stay warm. Like summer cottages, many huts are named. A group of Maritime expats fly the Newfoundland flag over their shanty, named Stagger Inn. Not far away, Brian Massé wears his heritage on his hut, Le Gaspésie.
Like Big Al, Massé loves the social side of ice fishing. His hut boasts a somewhat larger TV, in front of which neighbours regularly gather to watch Sens’ games or play cards. “I bring the Bell receiver from home,” he says. “My wife wanted to switch to a different provider that’s cheaper, but I said we can’t; I wouldn’t be able to get the games here.”
Brian Masse enjoys a cold one in his ice-fishing hut at Petrie Island. On nights when Senators’ games are televised, neighbours will drop by to watch. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Most of the huts are far more ramshackle and not everyone buys into the social club atmosphere, at least not all the time. Damien Collins showed up at 6:30 on a bitterly cold and blustery Friday morning recently, setting up a nylon one-man pup tent that he uses when the winds get too fierce. He likes ice fishing’s social side — “We’re all here after the same things,” he says. “Big fish, some beer and good times” — but adds he’s especially drawn by the solitude.
“I like to come with my dog, Ranger. I just like to think and have time to myself before going back to the concrete jungle.”
A ‘donkey’ is a small shelter used to keep out of the cold and wind. At Petrie Island, they’re typically carried or dragged out to ‘the drop’ where the island’s bays meet the Ottawa River current. Large fish are usually caught there. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
The 28-year-old Ottawa resident and landscape/construction worker has fished at Petrie Island pretty much every day this season, his first year back on the ice since driving by recently and reminding himself he liked doing it when he was a seven- or eight-year-old. He just bought a small, collapsible shack — often called a “donkey” — for $175 and might start staying overnight with a sleeping bag and a heat pad or two.
“My first day here, I sat outside for 11 hours with no tent or hut. It’s more for the peace of mind; the fish are a bonus, just like the beer.”
Allan Veillette and Matt Sharpe do what every ice-fisherman does: they wait. And while they wait they enjoy a cold Budweiser. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Only steps, away, it’s a slightly different story. Allan Veillette and Matt Sharpe sit in Veillette’s $125 hut, essentially a narrow and enclosed bench that looks like a failed prototype for a duck blind, with two fishing holes, a propane heater and bottles of Budweiser chilling on the icy floor. Here, the solitude is pretty much non-existent, as Veillette pleads into his cellphone for a friend to forget about having a shower, and come now, with beer, instead.
As for their catch, Collins will take his home to cook for himself, his girlfriend and Ranger. Veillette and Sharpe will more likely throw theirs back. “The best part of ice fishing,” says Veillette, “is the beer. You want one?” It is 10:30 a.m.
Then there are the serious ice fishermen, like Jacques Côté, whose plot of ice surrounding his uncluttered and sparsely functional hut is neatly shoveled, and who typically won’t drop a line outside his shack until closer to 4 p.m., even if he’s been there for hours. More likely, though, sundown will find him dragging a sled of equipment further out into the river to The Drop, where the calmer shallows surrounding Petrie Island meet the deeper, swifter current, where the big fish live.
He keeps a calendar on which he records his pickerel catch each day: how many and any of notable size. In the 16 days he fished through the last three weeks of December, he caught 39, the largest weighing five pounds.
He prefers ice fishing — hardwater fishing it’s sometimes called — to summer fishing, because he doesn’t have to spend all that time in a boat. “In the winter, the pickerel bite at sundown, so I fish from 4:30 to 5:30 — that’s it. I catch all these fish inside an hour and hour-and-a-half.”
Petrie Island ice fisherman Jacques Cote keeps track of how many fish he catches each day, and any of notable size. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
He takes his In-Fisherman Solunar Calendar, the ice fisherman’s equivalent of a Farmer’s Almanac, down from a shelf. In it, each day is colour-coded to reveal its ice-fishing worthiness. “Look!” he says. “They’re going to start biting tomorrow, and all next week is supposed to be really good.”
“Is this always reliable?” I ask.
“No.”
They say you don’t fish for the fish, but for the fishing. It’s a sentiment that seems even truer when it comes to ice fishing, where there’s far less active time fishing and much more time not really fishing.
Ryan O’Connell and Michael Killeen outside the Petrie Island fishing hut they rented for a day. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Michael Killeen and Ryan O’Connell spent most of a recent Friday sitting in lawn chairs by their fishing holes. Each was dressed in some serious looking winter wear, and so largely avoided the inside of their toasty, rented hut. By noon, the pair had caught just one small walleye, a paltry bounty that was sadly one fish better than their afternoon harvest. They were joined at lunch by another friend, Andrew “The Cooler” Collicott, whose nickname he derived from his friends’ failure to get even a nibble after he arrived.
Eric Desbiens shows the pair of walleye he caught outside his Petrie Island ice-fishing hut. (Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen)
Still, they agreed, it was a fine day. “A bad day on the water is still better than a good day at work,” says Killeen. “It’s the brotherhood and sisterhood of fishing; it brings people together.” They spent the day discussing favourite movies (“We talked about Rambo a lot”), the speeding tickets that each did or didn’t get in other countries, and waited for the Big One that never came.
“I love coming out because we talk about everything and nothing,” says Collicott. “It’s the opposite of what today’s society is: there are no apps, we actually wave to people who walk by and chat with people we don’t normally talk to. Whereas back in the world, we’re on our phones and we ignore each other.”
“And on our way home,” adds O’Connell, “we’ll stop at Loblaws, buy some fish and tell our wives we caught them.”
Visit oziles.ca and piifa.ca for more information.
bdeachman@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
