The toughest ice fisher you ever met?

[Grumpyoldman]

I got into this sport because I wanted to learn cold weather skills. During that period, I joined a friend on the ice one day, and wasn't fishing. It was cold. It was really, really cold. And he just stood there. and stood there. and stood there. I had to leave to thaw out. I learned that some of these ice fishers are the toughest, crustiest, badest guys around. You could take the toughest guy in normal circumstance, and if you asked him to go fishing during a sleet storm he would say no. H*ll no. Too cold. I'll just stay in here with my cocoa. I've since learned what I needed to know from being on the ice. But I will never be a tough, crusty, frozen fisherman. I have a shelter and heater. But no hot cocoa. Diet Pepsi. I will look out during a storm while fishing, and there's a bucket sitter, that hasn't moved in two hours that's sitll there. This is my only hobby, I am addicted. I cannot tell you why. Perhaps it is like art. It has been said that Art is something the mind can conceive, but only the heart can truly understand. I have never met the toughest Icefisher I have ever seen. He is a bucketsitter that goes out when nobody goes out. NOBODY. I see him as I'm driving by a lake. With the car heater on high. I see him still there hours later. It's freezing rain. I think He may be dead. But no. Every year the same thing, no matter the weather, He's there. Here's too you man.
Tell us about the toughest ice fisher you ever met.

[davemillertime]

hey grumpy not sure what state you are fishin but if its upper michigan ill bet the guy you are talking about is me lol  normally i have my tent with me but rarly i set it up iam normally the guy sitting on a bucket in a blizzard and all my buddys laugh at me and say"damn are you crazy you must be freezin your azz off " but im not i just like to be mobil and i know if i get all cozy warm ill never want to get out and move thats why i  chose the picture next to my name 

[Prehnite44]

I agree with Dave, when I bring my portable shanty, I get lazy and am much less inclined to get out in the cold and drill more holes or jig in new areas. Without it, I have to stay moving to stay warm, either by reeling 'em in or finding them elsewhere with new holes, techniques, etc.

[pikemaster789]

as a professional bucket sitter. I only have to say put your back to the wind and fish!

[srobocop]

i have a pak shack, but i'll barely pull it out and use it, i typically bring a 2nd lawn chair just so i don't have to pull the pak shack out of the bag. Buckets are too uncomfortable haha. If i know a lake, i typically wont move too much unless a spot is just not producing.

I may not be out in freezing rain tho. However if you wanted me to name the toughest ice fisher i know, it'd be hard becuase what you mentioned, well i think i see it around here alot, so i guess right now i'll just say "one of those guys" that i see out every weekend and/or weekday.

[Poopdeck Pappy]

The guy that thinks up the trip, brings the gear, leads the way and doesn't whine is tough. 

[Grumpyoldman]

And the winner is! The son of cubefisher from New Jersey. He wrote as follows:

Hands down, my 8 year old son. He gets up at all hours of the morning, sometimes pretty much just after going to bed, to travel sometimes 2+ hours to find fishable ice with me. He not only bucket fishes with me ( no shelter) all day 6-7 hours, never complaining that the fish aren't biting or it's to cold ( if he gets cold he pulls our sled around the tip-up spread) but he has the uncanny ability to tell if the bait shop shorted us on our usual 4 doz. large shiners, BEFORE, we leave the bait shop! He always has a smile or a joke for me after a fish spites the bait, to cheer me up. Then after a long sometimes very slow day, he fights to stay awake on the ride home to keep me company.
  NOW, on top of entertaining me all day on the ice, He deals with his TYPE 1 diabetes, which involves testing his sugar multiple times a day and taking his insulin on the ice. Also dealing with the sometimes " crummy feelings" he gets due to it. Yet he never complains because he says when he was in the hospital, there were kids much sicker then him. Instead he thinks about where to drill that next hole or what shiner in the bucket to put on his lucky tip-up........ I could only wish to be half  "the toughest ice fisher" as he.
 Here's to you my son.......