The love and hate of the auger
BY SCOTT HADDOW
Wild Northerner staff
It’s the moment when you think you’re close to being done and then it is just 60 more seconds of grunting and groaning and cursing.
Cutting an eight-inch hole into 26-inches of solid ice with a manual auger is a great way to start a day of fishing on the hardwater at 6 a.m.
If you’re cold, you won’t be for long. If you’re not tired, you will be soon.
I’ve been cutting holes by hand for the past eight winters. I must be one of the dumbest people who goes ice fishing - or crazy, or both.
About every second trip on the ice, I go on a solo excursion. I certainly don’t make my day a competition of how many holes I can drill by myself.
I know my limit. When the ice is two-feet thick, I can make four holes in less than 12 minutes and then I am breathing heavy and looking for an oxygen mask. I don’t even consider myself out-of-shape, but maybe I should!
I’ve been out with buddies and used the manual auger and every one of them hates it. A few of my friends despise it more than anything, and bring up its name when making plans to get out on a lake and how they don’t ever want to see it again. Sure, you can get some extra power on that auger with another person, but the end effect is still tired human beings wondering what they hell they are doing on the middle of a frozen lake when it is -35C.
I like the manual auger because it is easy to haul around. I do a lot of walk-in trips in the winter. It is no fun carrying a gas auger through the bush for several kilometres. I’ve seen a lot of glorious catastrophes with these gas-powered machines.
I love the ones that refuse to start for their owner. Watching a friend pull relentlessly on a short cord repeatedly never gets old. I was with another buddy one time and we were clipping across a lake at a decent speed. He hit a bump which sent the contents of the towing sleigh all over the lake. His gas auger exploded in a fury of busted plastic parts and bent metal. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I laughed and laughed hard under my helmet while my buddy stomped around the ice and cursed and waved his arms. Again, something that never gets old.