For anglers, winter brings choices

It's my firm belief that you and I have choices to help keep our brains and appetites for action stimulated.

We can invest in a budget for gasoline and motels for a trip to warmer climates so we can fish and soak up some sun. Or we can drive to northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, slowly motor our way out on the frozen lake, and plunk down our newly acquired ice fishing tent or shelter and start catching fish.

Our third option is to go to the Chicago Outdoor Sports Show in Rosemont and then sample the Chicagoland Fishing, Travel and Outdoor Expo in Schaumburg to get the adrenaline flowing while we dream about fishing.

And the last and probably the easiest choice is to stay home and whine about gray skies, cold water and air temperatures, and lament about the unfinished chores around the house.

I like all of the choices except the last one.

Former Schaumburg resident John Plaza just sent me a video from inside his ice tent while he was set up close to his home base of year-round operations in Chetek, Wisconsin.

Plaza's not-so-unique form of bragging is to visually display fish-catching from whatever device he has on hand, the usual good result of his ice angling effort during these first weeks of frozen water.

Whether it was an edit or something akin to real-time, John kept hauling in jumbo bluegills through one of his manicured holes in the ice.

After watching the video, I strongly informed my wife that I was going to drive northward and meet Plaza for some "drilling and chilling." She strongly suggested I toss my dirty clothes into the hamper and take out the garbage.

So, without a destination or a firm plan of action, I called my friend Tom and asked him for some advice.

After a fifteen-minute conversation, I finally chose to go to a local tackle store I knew that stocked ice tents and shelters. Once there, I asked if I could go into the backroom, where a demo model had been set up. With a bit of hesitation, they approved my request.

Because I wanted to create a "mock" ice fishing scenario, I laced up my boots, put a pocket warmer in my jacket pocket and stepped inside the tent.

It was no more than twenty minutes when I awoke and jumped up, hitting my head on one of the support bars and bringing the entire structure crashing down around my head.

The store manager was laughing so hard I thought he was going to collapse.

I grabbed my stuff, exited the store through the back entrance, and went home.

When I walked in, my wife asked, "How was fishing?"

I got into bed, closed my eyes and pulled the covers over my head and subsequently dreamed of 10-inch bluegills and fat walleyes.

Still time to fish:

• Fox River walleyes available just below the Carpentersville Dam as well as along the walls below Kimball.

• Bluff Lake crappie and walleyes in deeper water.

• Long Lake panfish very good in 12-feet.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com), and get more content at mikejacksonoutdoors.com.