CSotD: How well I know …
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Okay, today's Frazz may be TOO subjective a choice. For those who have never lived in the northern reaches of civilization (as Jef Mallett and I both have), ice fishermen really do periodically float off into the bay. For some reason, ice fishing is an obsession, and they get out there as soon as the ice can possibly hold them, then show up regularly until they are either ordered off the ice or it completely disappears.
In Maine, I saw people pulling out 24-inch trout, which makes the sport more sensible than in other places where the bait is maggots on tiny hooks and the "game" is tiny perch that fit in the palm of your hand. But the obsession is there in either case — One of these days, some ice fisherman with a little Wiley Coyote in his genes is going to strap a pair of ice blocks on his boots and try to walk out onto the bay in October.
But here's another intersection of ice fishing and foolishness:
One spring when I was a reporter at a paper on the shores of Lake Champlain, I called the Department of Environmental Conservation to ask a question about dioxin production in the kraft method of paper production, a local issue of some importance.
The fellow remarked, "I'm surprised you're not down at Westport!" and proceeded to inform me that some huge number — two dozen or so — ice fishermen were on a sheet that had broken free and drifted into the middle of the 125-mile long lake. The State Police were plucking them off in small groups by helicopter and ferrying them back to shore.
I alerted the editors and a bunch of us headed down there, only to find that our local bureau reporter down there was on the scene and had the whole thing under control. Thank goodness for that, because she had not only been there from the start, but already knew many of the authorities and the fishermen.
Since then, for budgetary reasons, many papers have closed their bureau offices. If they want to keep their reputation for covering the region, I guess they'd better have a lot of questions about dioxin.
As noted before, you can check the sidebar for Frazz collections, and go here for a 10-minute video interview I did with Jef Mallett last fall.
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