JOHN PEPIN

“When I grow up, I want to be one of the harvesters of the sea,” — Les Claypool

Just a few short hours after the mighty hands of the springtime clock groaned and screeched forward an hour, the four of us stood in the early morning daylight looking out at the white, frozen bay before us.

Our group of merry men included me, a buddy of mine and his two teenaged boys, headed out to try to catch some lake whitefish on what would likely turn out to be the last such trip of the winter.

The snow-covered scene was decorated with a scattering of ice shacks, silhouetted figures here and there walking far out in the distance and the occasional pick-up truck, station wagon or other vehicle parked on the ice.

As is often the case, the construction of these shacks varied greatly — from pop-up tents and portable blinds to more durable, wooden structures and even some that could serve as permanent dwellings.

Packed among our gear piled onto two sleds, in a draw-stringed storage bag, was our double-sized, insulated pop-up ice shack rated for nine people.

The wind was icy and gusty, blowing from the south and smacking us in the face on our walk onto the hard water. We moved past some shove ice near the shore that was colored a deep shade of almost electric blue.

As we walked, we crunched through a layer of snow, while more was falling through the clouded skies. The two boys had decided they’d take turns pulling one of the sleds out onto the ice and back.

Meanwhile, our party’s mascot — a well-intentioned and mostly well-behaved Deutsch Drahthaar — enjoyed racing out across the expanse of snow and ice.

We stopped at a place about a half-mile out. It took only a few minutes to set up the ice shack. Four holes were drilled into the ice with an old, reliable power auger, each a couple of feet apart. We then slid the shack over the holes.

The ice was a little more than 20 inches thick, with about a half a foot of that thickness developed over the past week. In some places, the ice was rumored to be 3 feet thick.

Steel hand screws were twisted into the ice, like tent spikes, to keep the shack from being blown halfway to Ontario by the wind. Inside the shack, conditions were much milder and quite comfortable.

Jackets were unzipped, gloves removed, and I took off the gaiter that had been keeping my neck and chin warm. The teens got their cellphones out and set up a Bluetooth speaker to play music.

A propane heater chugged out heat. Five chairs were set up. Four in a row at each of the holes in the ice for the anglers and another chair facing us for the dog, which kept her from having to lie in the snow.

We all took our seats and a couple of minutes to get our fishing poles ready, with our hooks baited with small, pink fish eggs. This was my first experience ice fishing for whitefish, so I was all eyes and ears, learning the proper technique.

There were facts, like how to best place the eggs on the hooks, the best knots to tie between the leader and base lines and which jigging motions had previously proved successful.

Then, as is almost always true of any type of fishing, there was also a degree of speculation and superstition.

Anglers often wonder about the reasons why fish aren’t biting, where fish might have moved to, whether a fish can “feel” an angler when he or she is holding the fishing rod, or exactly how finicky fish might be when it comes to bait.

An electronic fish finder helped us figure out some of that. We could see on the flashing display that there were fish hugging the bottom of the lakebed, some 90 feet below the surface.

During the first half-hour or so, there were no bites.

This left us time for talk and to listen to some of the music the boys — one who was 14 and the other who was 16 — had compiled song playlists for the trip.

Surprisingly, we were first served up a fine platter of classic country music.

We heard Jim Reeves sing “He’ll Have to Go,” Dolly Parton’s “Dumb Blonde,” “If a Woman Answers (Hang up the phone),” by Leroy Van Dyke, Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” and the older boy’s favorite, Johnny Cash, singing “Ring of Fire.”

I kidded them saying I’d heard “Ring of Fire” was often sung on the Wednesday following Taco Tuesday. We also chuckled at the quavering voice of Red Sovine as he delivered his choked-up, trucker recitation “Giddy-up Go.”

The boys seemed interested in my having heard all these songs before. I told them about how Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline had both died in plane crashes.

My buddy said he and the boys take regular Saturday night saunas where they listen to the local “American Country Gold” radio show by the recently late and always great disc jockey Elmer Aho.

That’s where the boys had developed their appreciation for the old country songs.

I thought about how my brother and I listened to Elmer’s show when he came to visit. Those songs reminded us of our early days when my dad used to listen to them too.

It was about this time that the first fish was brought up through one of the holes in the ice. Within the relative darkness of the ice shack, the water and ice shone bright, as the flashing form of the fish darted beneath the hole in front of me.

The shiny, large-scaled whitefish was beautiful to see close at hand. My buddy said these were the fabled “gray ghosts of the Great Lakes” that many people never see, dropping down as deep as 300 feet during the summertime.

Throughout the day, the younger of the two boys caught all but two of the fish. I began to refer to him as “the golden child.” We even switched chairs at one point as an experiment because I had had only a couple of bites, but no fish.

He wasn’t in my seat longer than a couple of minutes before he got another bite. That’s another part of fishing that goes along with the superstition.

I didn’t end up catching any fish that day, but I didn’t care at all.

For me, having the opportunity to share the experience with these fine folks gave me a lot of wonderful moments.

It was fun to compare the habits and talk of my two teenaged stepdaughters with those of the two boys. There were similarities and differences.

Both teen groups seem to have confirmed that “the mullet” hairstyle is coming back, though neither group knows why. There is some speculation that it provides the wearer with greater athletic powers. What?

The music of the boys differed from that of the new country, pop and rap tastes of our two girls.

The playlist we heard from the younger boy was hard rock, like Ozzy Osborne’s “Crazy Train,” “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead and Ronnie Jame Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” and “Holy Diver.” Cool, eh?

The boys were fun to be around. They bemoaned their dad’s peanut butter cracker and Lucky Charms bars choice of snacks, as they did use of the term “Bro.”

I used the opportunity to call them “Bro” and “Bra” long enough during our time together that they younger boy disappointedly caught himself saying it.

Their tossing fish eggs at each other as I sat in between them reminded me of my own boys and the fun we’d have fishing and camping when they were that age.

These were the things that these kinds of fishing trips are all about. They are rare opportunities to be realized, sometimes maybe only once or twice in a lifetime, but they provide a storehouse packed full of memories.

There are always intentions to repeat these trips, but sometimes life’s circumstances don’t allow it. All kinds of things can get in the way and before you know it, everyone is older and maybe fishing isn’t cool anymore, as is now sadly the case with my stepdaughters.

Walking back in across the ice, I thought of my dad and how much I miss fishing with him, though he never once ice fished that I know of.

I wondered whether he is catching fish on a peaceful backwater somewhere in the tag alder swamp woods of heaven.

I want to know what they use for bait up there, if the fish always bite, if it ever rains when you’re out fishing or whether God wets a line from time to time.

On the ride home, my buddy ordered a take-home pizza for dinner for the boys. They kindly gave me some of the fish to take home for me and the ladies.

Saying good-bye, we talked of seeing each other to do this again sometime.

I sure hope we do.

I have a playlist I want them to hear.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.