A steady snow was falling, the skies were cloudy, and the windchill was 8 degrees on a recent Saturday. At the northeast end of frozen Stissing Lake a small thermal tent stood a short walk from the boat launch. Ten yards away, Pine Plains native Patrick Magurno had finished drilling his last fishing hole.
“The ice is more than one foot — thick enough to drive a truck out here with no problem,” said Magurno, who, after a series of warmer winters, is enjoying his first ice-fishing season in three years. “I think everybody should bring their kids out and enjoy the ice while it’s thick, even if it’s just to run around and have a good time. You don’t have to go fishing. The lake is one of the gems we have in this town.”
Stissing Lake is part of a chain of glacial lakes that includes Thompson Pond and Twin Island Lake (or Mud Pond). It’s by far the deepest of the three, measuring as much as 25 to 30 feet in the middle. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP), a minimum of 3 to 4 inches of solid ice is the general rule for safety.
While ice fishing, Magurno prefers to fish more shallow waters. “You always consider depth and if there’s any green vegetation left on the bottom to attract the fish,” he said, “I see a lot of guys drawing holes in the middle and really not coming up with much. In my experience, fish here tend to hang like in the 7-foot range.”
A contractor, a competitive bass angler, and an avid trout fly fisherman, Magurno has been ice fishing on Stissing Lake for almost 40 of his 44 years. “When I was younger, we didn’t have the best outdoor gear,” he said. “I spent a lot of days in the cold, just frozen, so now, I’m kind of cushy, I guess.”
His tent is a one-man fishing shelter, insulated, with a heater. “If I get cold, I close up the shack and turn on that heater,” he said. “It gets so hot in there in 10 minutes that I gotta take this jacket off.”
Magurno uses a power auger, which makes drilling through the thick ice a lot faster and easier. After making seven holes — the most allowed by the NYCDEP for a solo angler — he covered six with a tip-up, allowing him to set multiple baited lines below the ice. When a fish takes the bait, a trigger mechanism flips up a flag. Then he has to act quickly to pull the line up through the hole in the ice.
The seventh hole was inside Magurno’s shelter, where he sat and jigged with a regular pole. Jigging is when fishers raise and lower the pole a couple inches to attract the fish to the moving bait. He can watch the action underwater on his radar screen.
Magurno uses a variety of live minnows for bait — Orange Fatheads, Rosies, and Golden Shiners — some of which can be found naturally in Stissing Lake. “I’m targeting pan fish to eat, the crappies and the sunfish. I just like fish tacos,” he said with an easy laugh.
“I fished pretty hard three years ago,” Magurno said. “We got a lot more gear and I had a buddy that was helping me and we’d have these insulated shacks, you can get four or five people in them and we’d be out all day.” This year, while he enjoys the camaraderie and always makes a point of chatting with his fellow fishermen on the ice, he mainly sticks to his shelter: “It’s way more convenient because it’s like a one-man run-and-gun.”
While temperatures remain low, friends Ryan Labrenz of Pine Plains, Eric Self of Pleasant Valley, and Nick Hovtvianytsia of Rhinebeck try to spend time together on the ice. “I wouldn’t see these guys in the winter if it wasn’t for ice fishing,” Self said. He remembers playing hockey on Stissing Lake in the early 1990s, when he lived in Stanfordville. He learned the hard way how fast a puck could travel on smooth ice after having to skate to the other end of the lake to retrieve it.
On a recent weekend they used a utility terrain vehicle to transport their gear to a spot not far from a beaver lodge. They set up a couple of wood stick tip-ups and some jigging rods. Self said he and his 7-year-old son, Paxton, love the outdoors, “and we love being able to fish in February.” Among the group they caught three crappies.
As for Magurno, the last couple of times he went out, he caught only one fish. He said they seem to get a little more active right around dusk, so he hangs out until an hour after dark. The older he gets the more he appreciates his specially made ice gear. “It’s super, super warm, and if you do break through the ice, it floats so it won’t weigh you down in the water,” Magurno said. “I don’t know if it’ll hold you up, but it makes my wife feel better.”
For more information on ice fishing and to learn how to obtain a fishing license, visit the NYSDEC’s website.