‘There’s something special about being out here’

Published 9:00 am Sunday, January 29, 2017

: Adam Hamberg uses an ice auger to make holes to fish out of on Fountain Lake on Friday. - Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune

Locals enjoy ice fishing on area lakes during winter

The wind whips around Fountain Lake on a wintry Friday afternoon. Though the weather is cold, inside an ice tent memories are being made between a father and son.

Adam Hamberg was fishing with his son, Marcus, 5, and his nephew, Fred Tenneson, 10.

Cousins Fred Tenneson and Marcus Hamberg wait for some bites while ice fishing on Fountain Lake. – Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune

“There’s just something about getting out on the ice,” Hamberg said. “I just enjoy drilling holes and sitting out here.

“There’s something special about being out here. I really can’t describe it, but there’s a peace about it.”

Hamberg said he enjoys the bond he shares with other ice fishers, whom he deems as sportsmen, outdoorsmen and polite.

“We always bounce things off one another,” he said. “‘What are we catching? How deep of water are we in?’ A lot of it is the people out here.”

Trevor Herfindahl ice fishes on Fountain Lake on Friday afternoon. – Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune

Hamberg, who grew up in Albert Lea, ice fishes with his son about four times a week and remembers fishing on Fountain Lake as a child.

“This lake has been very good to me over the years,” he said.

Hamberg shares the importance of cleaning up the lake with his son, and he discusses the lake’s ecosystem and talks about the need to release some of the fish they catch. They also fish in Clear Lake and other lakes in Iowa and Minnesota.

Hamberg said ice fishing allows him to spend important time with his son, and he plans to rent a cabin with him up north when his son is old enough. He has also ice fished with fellow Albert Lea Police Officer Sy Vanthavong.

Trevor Herfindahl typically drills several holes when ice fishing to see where the fish are biting. – Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune

Hamberg said fishing allows him to temporarily escape from work.

“Being an officer, I never think about work when I am out here,” he said. “I always think about fishing, I always think about my boy. To me, it is a nice break from what you do for a living. It’s nice coming out here and just forgetting about a lot of that stuff. There’s a lot of peace to being out here.”

“There’s something about having the radio on, having the heater on, having the doors shut on the ice house and fishing away.”

Trevor Herfindahl, 22, was also fishing on Fountain Lake Friday afternoon. He said he enjoys the quiet and having something to do during the winter months.

“Just something about it,” he said.

Herfindahl fishes often during the winter and the summer. He had returned home from college in Jackson, where he caught nine big perch Friday morning.