Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask. Skiing, golf, hiking, tennis, cycling: all attracted new adherents. Yet ice fishing has grown particularly fast. Even before the pandemic, the sport was defying a decline in fishing in general. In 2020, the Minnesota department of natural resources sold just over 1.2m fishing licences, or roughly one for every five residents of the state, the highest number in at least two decades.
Standing outside his tent on the ice, with his dog, Justin Fodor, a heating and air conditioning technician who lives in St Paul, explains that he started ice fishing a few years ago, at first with little more than his summer rods and lines. “I came out just with a drill, a table and a chair, I didn’t even have a hut,” he says. But as time has passed, he has bought plenty of gear, and in turn, goes out more to use it, enjoying the chance to bond with his friends.
According to Tad Johnson, who runs the Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, an annual tournament which draws thousands of people to fish on one lake in central Minnesota, all of this gear has helped lure newcomers in. It “has evolved so much that really anyone can go out and ice fish in relative comfort”, he says. Theis not even the most dramatic development.
Fishing is extremely Anti-Indigenous and Anti-Black:
Ice, ice, maybe
I love hearing about new sports and how we have had some positives come out of the last few years. UC_BUSI215
A sport that comes with free food?
Sport? Sport SPORT!!!!!!!
No frozen lake? Just fish normally then.