Column: Dick Herfindahl, Woods and Water

There are many things to look forward to as we head into the new year. Once Christmas is past and we are looking at the holiday season in the rearview mirror it’s time to relax and enjoy the outdoors. With the many opportunities that exist for outdoor activities in the winter I have little time to dwell on the early onset of the dreaded cabin fever. Coaching and watching my grandsons play hockey takes up the lion’s share of my winters so there is little down time. Staying active in the winter months seems to make it go by pretty fast.

I do plan to sneak in a little ice fishing sometime in the very near future and, if the opportunity presents itself, I may even get to Blue Earth to watch my grandson, Dylan, wrestle. If you’re not into spectator sports but are into the outdoors then there is also plenty on the table for you to partake in. Cross-country skiing is a very good sport along with snowshoeing, skating and sledding.

Sledding and ice skating were the outdoors activities of choice when I was growing up. I did manage to coax a pair of ice skates out of my mom and dad for one of my birthdays. My dad worked at the Community Oil Co. service station back when the word service was a word that actually had some meaning. A service station was pretty much gas, oil and tires, and all of the services that came along with them including a service station attendant who would pump your gas, wash your windows, check your oil and put air in your tires if asked.

Getting back to the skates; I would from time to time ride to work with my dad on a Saturday so I could walk down to the Rivoli Theatre for the Saturday matinee, which often times was a double feature. I always looked forward to those Saturdays, and I’d have to say that some of my favorite movies were the Abbott and Costello ones. If a western was playing, Randolph Scott was one of my favorite cowboy heroes and his movies played quite often at those matinees. It was 20 cents for the movie and 5 or 10 cents would get you a bag of popcorn. A kid could spend a whole afternoon at the movies for less than 50 cents.

Whenever I walked to the movies I would always make sure that I went the long way and passed by the Gambles store on Clark Street. The reason for this was the pair of ice skates that they had on display in the window. They were shiny black skates with red plaid lining, and I would take every opportunity to look at those skates and dream of having them one day. After much hinting I finally resigned myself to the fact that we just couldn’t afford them, but I still went out of my way to walk by the store to look at them in the window. One Saturday as I looked into the window to drool over those skates, they were gone! Sigh, oh well, it was better that they were out of sight and hopefully out of mind.

When my birthday came along that year the folks gave me my present and when I opened the box there were those skates! That was one of the best presents I’d ever gotten. I guess they’d picked up on all the hinting that I was doing after all. Now our family didn’t have a lot of money in those days so to get a present like that was huge. They weren’t hockey skates but I didn’t care because they were brand spankin’ new skates and they were the ones that I wanted.

My dad ground off the first couple of teeth so that you could skate fast without worrying about digging the teeth into the ice and falling on your nose. He said that this is what my Uncle Oliver did to his skates when he skated, and my dad said that Oliver was quite a skater. I skated on those skates and played pond hockey with them until I went into the service. I actually used them when I first started coaching and the boys first got into hockey but they told me if I was going to coach I’d have to get a pair of real hockey skates. That’s when I finally retired them and it was probably just as well because there was actually no ankle support at all in those skates and that was just an accident in the making.

As a country kid I only played pond hockey, and that was about as fun as it could get. We would walk to “the pond” that was located on Bridge Avenue about where the old Sunshine preschool used to sit. That was a lot of fun, and there were nights when we’d go there and start a little bonfire to keep warm. I don’t think anyone ever came home with warm feet. It didn’t matter that not everyone had skates because playing in the old five buckle overshoes was just as much fun. It’s what we did back then, we just made our own fun and it sure was a good time.

A few fishing reports from around the state:

Bemidji: Ice varies from 10 to 18 feet with slush pockets here and there. Try Bemidji, Plantangette or the Big Wolf Chain. Walleye action spotty, try shiners, rainbows or suckers. Sunset bite. Perch action also spotty, but pike reports have been great. Try Grace and Bemidji.

Hackensack: We have good ice, 12 to 15 inches in most spots. After the last snowfall there is about 8 inches of snow on the lakes, it is light, dry snow so still easy to get around with a four wheeler. Early ice walleyes continue to cooperate; Walker Bay has been the best spot so far. Fish the first couple hours of the day or the last few of the evening. The humps or shoreline breaks have been productive. Golden shiners or fatheads are the bait of choice. The Northland Forage Minnow is a good jig choice; I prefer either the silver or the green. There has also been some panfish action on some of the smaller local lakes.

Until next time, watch out for thin ice, play safe and above all get outside and enjoy the great Minnesota outdoors!

Remember our brothers and sisters who are proudly serving our country so that we can keep enjoying the freedoms that we have today.

Dick Herfindahl’s outdoors column appears in Friday’s Tribune.