Les Cheneaux
By Helen Shoberg 484-2626 mink1@cedarville.net

Cleon Moss called last week to report that he saw a robin on Hessel Point. Bitter cold winter weather has now arrived. There have been many who have been sick with some type of the flu. Many students were out of school, along with some teachers, and others including yours truly. It doesn't seem to last long, but is very unpleasant while it does.

Bruce Patrick, who contributes so much to this column lately, is also ill. He is in the hospital, but we hope he will be home by the time this paper goes to press.

It was nice last week to walk into the Les Cheneaux Community Library and see Ronda McGreevy as the new manager. Ronda has been hired to fill the vacancy left by Lisa Pelkey, who with her husband, Chuck, and family has moved to Avon, Minnesota. Ronda will do a great job for the library, I'm sure. We also wish the best for the Pelkey family as they enter and find their place in a new community.

The Lions Club raffle winner of January 23 was Marvin Chard of Hessel, who won $100.

It's wintertime and the ice fishing story I have from Bruce Patrick is appropriate for this time of the year. It follows:

"This is more about ice fishing for lake trout in the winter. There is a grab rock reef off the southeast end of Goose Island. This reef has grab rock which harbors a small fish which trout like to eat. Ice fishermen rarely could get out on ice to this reef, but gill net fishermen would put gill nets back and forth over this reef by boat.

"On one occasion, a gill netter set 25 miles of gill nets back and forth over this reef and when he lifted on one occasion, got hundreds of pounds of trout. These gill netters landed their catch at the east end of Government Island, called Stevenson's Landing, where several gill net boats landed their catch in the winter. A truck would come right down to the boat to pick up their catch.

"A truck, owned by Hamel, would come off the land at Taylor's mill at Cedarville, drive right to Stevenson's Landing, pick up the catch, and take it to Mackinaw City. There the catch would be iced and shipped south by rail. This grab rock reef rarely had ice safe enough for foot fishermen to get to.

"On one occasion, a fisherman who had a dog team, went out to Grab Rock Reef, but found upon getting to an expansion crack off Goose Island, the dogs would not cross this crack, which was about eight inches wide. So the fisherman made his dog team fast and then walked the rest of the way to Grab Rock, caught eight trout, and came in to his dog team. The dogs would not cross this expansion crack; they knew better. A catch of eight trout was better than most fishermen caught in a day back on safe ice.

"On another occasion, several ice fishermen hauled a six-foot boat with them to Grab Rock area. The next day all the ice was gone off Grab Rock! They took the boat so if the ice moved off Grab Rock, they could float off to good ice during that day."