It wasn’t many winters ago that Robby Richardson ventured out to Antero Reservoir, one of his favorite ice fishing spots, and didn’t see anyone.
“You wouldn’t see another person there for weeks,” he recalled. “Now it’s like everyone is running to see who will be the first to get there. And they post it on social media, and the next thing you know, there’s 50 people.”
Welcome to the age of ice fishing.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has reported selling more sports licenses in recent years, and it’s easy to see that more people are casting lines beyond summer and fall. Based in Gunnison, Richardson has expanded his guide service into a branch of his own: Ice Fish Colorado.
“Ice fishing has really grown to become our prime time,” he said.
Richardson attributes the boom in part to this social media trend. The sport is simply catching more eyeballs.
It’s also a credit, he said, to the team’s development. Shelters are becoming warmer and more affordable, while he sees gadgets like sonars and cameras, which allow anglers to spot fish in real time, also adding to the appeal.
But you don’t need the latest and greatest, said longtime enthusiast Chris Spaulding. A beginner fishing rod and reel combo, bait, auger, bucket, and simple safety tools will do, he said.
Assuming you have a coat, hat, gloves and other warm layers, “put about $100 into it, you’ll be ice fishing,” said Spaulding, who runs Colorado Tackle Pro in Colorado Springs.
For decades, experience has been priceless to him.
“There’s something about the cold, crisp morning and the fresh mountain air,” he said.
There is something about the silent solitude if you go alone and the camaraderie if you go with friends. Something about hours of looking over a hole and watching fish drift by, “like fishing in an aquarium,” Spaulding said. Something, too, about how the fish bite in the winter.
“In general, you have a better chance for bigger fish in ice fishing,” Spaulding said. “Early in the winter, when the ice forms, there’s still a lot of oxygen in the water and the fish really start feeding hard.”
In ice fishing, “the playing field is more even,” he said. That was something Richardson pointed out when he started out as a kid.
“You could be an everyday fisherman and have minimal equipment, and you could get anywhere on the lake as if you were a guy with a boat,” he said.