NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1433144
46 Nebraskaland • December 2021 Tales and Tips From the Hardwater any of us hunt and fi sh because of the people we get to hunt and fi sh with. Some of the best conversations I've had on the ice, in a duck blind or while walking through tallgrass prairie have featured topics like family, politics and religion. While stories of greenheads and big bucks fi ll the air, they often are replaced by more serious topics. This is when true hunting and fi shing partnerships — friendships — are formed. When reminiscing through a set of ice fi shing images, I couldn't help but think about what else was going on behind the scenes on these days, as well as the act of fi shing itself. Because while we can ride the cliché about the reasons we hunt and fi sh with these friends, it always makes the story seem to go a little better if we were, indeed, having some success as well. Within an Hour We went straight from the airport to the pond. I had just picked up my best friend, Rob Gaia, after his fl ight from Tennessee, and we were stepping on the ice as soon as we could. I walked him through how to use the auger and schooled him on how to play big gillies and bass on 2-pound-test. "Very carefully." He would release line to the bottom of the lake, wait for the line to bunch up, then turn the handle until he was a foot off the bottom. After a short time of waiting — less than a minute or two — he would reel up another foot and begin the process again until he was ready to look at the next hole over. "This is just like when we're bass fi shing," I told him. "If the fi sh aren't there, move." His joy was immediate, and this image has always carried a diff erent level of meaning for me. Rob has two sons, Hagen and Seth, with his wife Caroline. While Hagen provides all the challenges any 6-year-old does, Seth is a special-needs child who was born so prematurely he could have put his hand and arm through that wedding ring Rob is wearing on his fi nger. So anytime Rob has the time to get in the fi eld, he makes those moments as special as he can — and his smile and willingness to learn show that. Plus, as he told me, "Kurrus, this ice fi shing's great. I can put my beer right on the ice, and it stays cold all day long." Unfathomable My ice-fi shing career started slow. And for good reason. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, so I was unwilling to fork out much money to see. I was hand- augering one or two holes a trip, ecstatic when I had managed to catch a few fi sh on homemade jigs through the ice. However, on the day of this image just two years later, I had pulled my sled — loaded with a gas-powered ice auger, a collection of rods and reels, and my newest purchase, a Vexilar — across the 200-acre lake in search of bluegills. And, man, did I fi nd them. The fi sh were stacked in this spot — like fi sh M Story and photos by Jeff Kurrus Rob Gaia, of Shelby Forest, Tennessee, is all smiles while showing off a Nebraska bluegill from a private pond in Cass County.