Old school ice fishing still works

By Carl Gadow of Eagan

The passage of days and nights is loud and clear, but decades slip by quietly—until something smacks you in the face like a frozen northern pike.

That’s when you realize you still fish like it’s 1979—and that what once felt proudly “old school,” now edges closer to simply “old fool.”

My own tail-fin-to-the-cheek moment arrived just before Christmas. I was sitting on my pail, patiently jigging for sunfish, when I glanced around at the handful of anglers sharing a small patch of ice inside a circle of rushes. And it struck me: I still fish like it’s 1979.

Transportation, clothing, equipment, and technique have all modernized. I apparently have not.

Earlier that morning, as I shuffled across the glare ice, I suppose I already sensed it. There’s a certain pride in penguin-walking in the same boots my dad bought me from Fleet Farm in 1981. They still work; I value the function, not the fancy. My 1979 Trailfire/Spitfire promotional stocking cap keeps my head warm enough, and from my toes to the top of that cap, my winter fishing layers have more than a century of combined seasoning.

What I saw that day, though, was eye-opening.

The modern Gen Z angler cruises out on an ATV pulling a gear-packed sled. The 2026 ice-fishing kit includes a pop-up shelter, Livescope sonar and Vexilar fish finders, an electric auger, and multiple rods protected in a hard case that probably cost more than my first car.

Roll up, drill, scan, locate. There! Fifteen feet that way! Another hole drilled in seconds. Drop the transducer, bait the hook, lower the line to the precise depth of the fish. One fish caught. The whole process from start to fish takes under five minutes.

And the celebrations are just as modern.

The Silent Generation ignores the commotion because it is a feat purchased and not earned through hard work and experience. Baby Boomers smile grimly. Gen X offers a subtle nod. The Millennial documents the moment. The Zoomer celebrates in ways I don’t pretend to understand.

I stick to the head nod.

Then my bobber slips underwater. My simple stick rod clatters onto the ice. Hand over hand, water stripping from the line, I pull up a good, hand-sized keeper. Across the way, the young angler measures his catch in inches. And just like that, it all comes to a crescendo. Even the way we talk about fish sizes has changed.

I pack up after that. Into the orange toboggan sled go the hand auger, the heavy iron chisel, and my battered pail. My vintage stocking-cap-covered head sags a little lower as I shuffle off the lake in boots old enough to qualify for Social Security benefits. All I can think about is where I left my grandfather’s 1960s fillet knife to clean the limit of sunnies I’m hiding in the pail.

I may get ridiculed off the lake, but old school still works. And for this old fool, the results taste just fine fried in a pan.