I grew up in Minnesota and we used to ice fish a lot (I live in sunny California now, but...)
On the lake in front of our house (Lake Minnetonka) in the winter you'd catch mostly crappies through the ice. That's about the only time of year you'd want to eat them cause in the summer they'd get wormy.
Occassionally you could hook into a nice largemouth bass, or even a Northern Pike. Fun trying to get those blasted northerns up through the hole... needless to say they don't necessarily want to cooperate when you try to get their head into the hole.
I spent a weekend up north with a boyfriend and his parents in their larger fish houses on Whitefish Bay, I think it was. We caught mostly eelpout up there. We'd throw them out on the ice and the local Indians would come and pick them up and take them home and eat them. They were a bit of a plague on the lake up there, so they didn't mind us removing a few. What we were really up there fishing for was walleye. My boyfriend's stepfather caught one that weekend that was about 14-15# if I remember right. Nice fish.
Those houses were heated and had bunks in them. You could sit in them quite comfortably in jeans and a t-shirt.
Ah, the good ol' days!
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