COHASSET, Minn. _ Mike Best calls it the fish that got him "addicted" to spearing northern pike. And he didn't even spear it himself. He was just a kid.
"My dad speared a 20-pound, 9-ounce pike," said Best, 60. "I got to carry it on my shoulder back to the landing."
He doesn't remember exactly how old he was, but he's been spearing since he was 10 _ 50 years. Best was spearing again on Jan. 7 on Big Jay Gould Lake near Cohasset, Minn., where he has his spearing shack set up. He was among some 75 people who had gathered on the lake for a "Family Day on Ice" spearing event sponsored by the Minnesota Darkhouse and Angling Association.
They had all turned out despite temperatures that fluctuated between 3 below zero and 3 above, with a brisk northwest wind. Across the lake, a couple dozen spearing houses and portable shelters were set up on the ice, warm and toasty inside. A dogsledder and his team gave free rides around the lake. A caterer cooked hot dogs and baked beans out on the ice.
A gaggle of Grand Rapids, Minn., teenagers drank hot chocolate in a heated shelter. One of them, 13-year-old Brayden Jones, already had speared a small northern pike. But then, he's been spearing since he was 4.
In a portable pop-up shelter, University of Minnesota student Ellen Best, 23, of Grand Rapids Minn., and three college friends watched a plump perch swim beneath Best's spearing decoy. All had come up for the weekend event.
This was the sixth year of the family-day outing, said Rick Guertin of Grand Rapids, Minn., president of the Minnesota Darkhouse and Angling Association and also the Itasca County chapter president.
"We do this to raise awareness of the sport of darkhouse spearing," Guertin said, "and secondarily, just to give a boost to area youth and family activity levels, to get the kids active."
Last year, with temperatures in the 20s, about 120 people came out for the event.
As in angling and hunting, fewer young people are taking up spearing than once did. For the past five years, spearing license sales have averaged about 20,000. That compares to about 50,000 per year going back to the 1960s and 1970s, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Spearing has seen its challenges over the decades. At one time, some angling groups lobbied to abolish spearing, but the sport remained legal.
