Author Topic: Omaha World-Herald Story  (Read 1582 times)

Offline hawgerdawger

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Omaha World-Herald Story
« on: Jan 29, 2006, 08:45 PM »
A good story about our bad news ...


Promising start to winter season of fun melts away

BY LARRY PORTER
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
 

LINCOLN - "Mother Nature" will be engraved on the area of the trophy reserved for the 2006 winner of Valentine's Cork Thornton Memorial ice fishing tournament.

   
Mike Stoops of ATV Motorsports in Omaha said he's only sold two snowmobiles. "This weather is terrible for the snowmobile industry," he said. Stoops is optimistic that winter weather is on the way, however ice fishing tournaments have been cancelled as far north as Minnesota.
 
The winter that wasn't claimed its final victim this past week. For perhaps the first time, there were no major ice fishing tournaments held in Nebraska this winter.

Events scheduled at Willow Creek near Pierce, Grove Lake near Royal, Maskenthine Reservoir near Stanton, Wilson Creek 2X near Otoe and even Manawa in Council Bluffs also were canceled because of dangerous ice conditions or no ice at all.

Snowmobiling? Forgidaboudit.

"Fifteen years ago," said Mike Stoops, who owns ATV Motorsports in Omaha, "we were selling about 30 new snowmobiles a year. We sold another 30 used ones back then because almost everyone who buys a new snowmobile will trade one in.

"With the weather we've had this year, we've sold only two. This weather is terrible for the snowmobile industry."

This winter had such a promising beginning for those who love cold-weather outdoor activities.

"Right after the Thanksgiving storm, we had 15 inches of ice," said Steve Isom of Valentine, director of the Cork Thornton tourney. "By Christmas, we were wearing shorts. We had a record high of 71 degrees a couple of weeks ago."

Vickie Modlin, who owns Woods Sporting Goods in Council Bluffs, got excited and stocked a good supply of ice fishing equipment when frigid weather cloaked the Midlands in early December.

"We had ice the first week of December," Modlin said. "We've never had ice that early. As soon as it looked like we had good ice, I ordered. And I ordered big."

The ice lasted about three weeks, then the meltdown occurred.

"We've still been doing a pretty good business," Modlin said. "People who fish at Manawa and local farm ponds are my biggest customers. But I know everybody will travel more to fish if they have to."

Palm trees, though, are about to bud even in areas of the country where ice fishing is a way of life.

"We're having a tropical winter in northern Minnesota," said Charlie Moore of Baxter, Minn., tournament director of the In-Fisherman's Professional Walleye Trail. "We're on a long stretch where it's hardly freezing at night, and it's 35 and 40 degrees during the day."

Folks in the Brainerd-Baxter area are still hard-core.

"I went ice fishing for lake trout last weekend on four inches of ice," Moore said.

The warm winter has melted the income of many businesses, communities and individuals.

"People don't realize we would sell five times as many ATVs than snowmobiles if we'd get six or eight inches of snow," Stoops said. "People use ATVs to push snow.

"The lack of snow, in general, hurts the economy. Think of all those people who push snow. That's extra money for them. Get two or three snowfalls in a row and you'll have all your city and county workers working overtime. They've got extra money to spend.

"When it snows, people go into hardware stores and buy snowblowers, sand, salt, everything. They're spending money. Those people making it on the other side also are spending it.

"The bad side of snow and slick streets is that people get in wrecks. So body shops are busy. Those people are making and spending money. So you can see that bad weather is actually really good for the economy."

Valentine is the one community in Nebraska that each year expects to rake in money from ice fishermen.

"Absolutely," said Dean Jacobs, executive director of the Valentine Chamber of Commerce. "That's our tourism in the wintertime. We definitely count on ice fishing. People love to ice fish the Valentine Refuge lakes for northern pike, then go to Merritt and fish for crappie. It's a big deal for us.

"When ice fishing goes south, it hurts motels, restaurants, sporting good shops, gas stations - everybody."

The first Cork Thornton Memorial tournament was to have been held in 1976, but there was not sufficient ice. It never again had to be canceled until this year.

When there isn't enough snow in the Omaha area, Stoops takes his family to Minnesota or Wisconsin to ride snowmobiles.

"Ninety percent of my customers, though, go to the Black Hills," he said. "They say if I ever do go there, I'll never go back to Minnesota or Wisconsin."

Mike's wife, Tracy, is secretary of the Southwest Iowa Snow Scooters, a snowmobile club that meets the first Monday of each month, October through March, at Pizza King in Council Bluffs.

"When it does snow around here," Stoops said, "a lot of people ride snowmobiles. It's mainly on private land. You can go from Crescent to Neola in the road ditches and on private ground. But they also ride at Lake Manawa. Not on the lake, but the park."

Modlin is convinced that winter has not retreated for good.

"It seems like ice comes on three times a winter," the sporting goods store owner said. "This winter, I guarantee, we'll get one more. I'm not worried about it yet. It'll come."

Snow would be nice, too, Stoops said.

"Last year, when we got a snow in January, we sold 28 snowmobiles in a week," Stoops said. "All it needs to do is snow, and they'll sell."


"Bragging may not bring happiness, but no man having caught a large fish goes home through an alley." --Unknown

 



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