Frigid temps don't keep anglers away from Antioch ice fishing derby

Six hours. That was time enough standing on a frozen Channel Lake on the coldest Saturday of the 2015 winter for Brandon Wheat.

Even wearing two coats, a hooded sweatshirt, a knit ski mask, a couple layers on his legs and ice cleats strapped onto his boots, Wheat, 25, of Fox Lake, said the wind whipping across the lake creating at times whiteout conditions got the better of him.

“I had the itch,” he had said earlier in the day, explaining why he was up at dawn and on the ice with a hand auger drilling through 16 inches, give or take, of ice to participate in The Northern Illinois Conservation Club's 55th Annual Ice Fishing Derby and Winter Festival in Antioch.

A couple dozen people — mostly men in insulated coveralls and knit caps — pulled sleds packed with poles, bait, drills and beer (coolers not necessary in the arctic air) from Turtle Beach, next to the Thirsty Turtle Beach Bar and Grill, onto the ice.

“I'm new to the area, and I just heard about this,” said Wheat, one of the few anglers without the shelter of a tent. “I'm an avid fisherman so I went out yesterday and bought a couple of tip-ups and figured I'd give it a try.” A tip-up is a mechanism that sits above the ice. When a fish, be it white bass, crappie, Northern, or any of the other species in the Chain O' Lakes take the bait, the tip flips up signaling a fish on the line.

“As far as technique, I want to to be in the right place,” he said. “If the fish are there, they're there.”

So what was on Wheat's line?

“Not much,” he said, explaining his exit before the derby officially wrapped up at 4 p.m. The club gives prizes for largest fish, by length, in a number of species categories. Two hours into the derby a 29-inch Northern pike and a 17-inch white bass had been recorded on the leader board.

“I got a couple of small ones. I wasn't going to be winning any prizes,” he said.

The derby continues 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15, at 42273 N. Woodbine Ave., with cash prizes from $250 to $1,000 up for grabs. Besides the fishing derby, there's a shanty contest, kids and adult games and a raffle that raises money to fund the group's activities and provide scholarships for local high school students.

Club president Marguerite O'Connell of Antioch said she expects close to 150 people to pack the tent Sunday for the raffle drawing, no matter what the weather.

“We haven't seen a direct correlation between attendance and the temperature,” she said.

A few hundred feet away from the beach, there was plenty of action in Bob Kiesgen's shanty. A bucket containing 20-plus crappies and blue gills sat in the corner of the small wooden shack decorated with a Chicago Cubs throw rug and equipped with electric lights, a heater and a fish-finding sonar. While 12-year-old Jacob Matthews of Round Lake Heights sat in floor jiggling a pole with a spike (aka maggot) into the water, Kiesgen fired up the charcoal grill for breakfast sandwiches. Chili, brats and cinnamon-infused whiskey would keep the party warm and nourished in the afternoon. Those fish in the bucket would be pan-fried later.

“I'm out here almost everyday,” said Kiesgen, 57, hinting that in 30-some years of fishing Channel Lake he's got a sense of where the fish are and isn't bothered by the weather.

Added his wife, Pam, “We've got the grandkids out here, some friends ... It doesn't get any better than this.”