ADF&G gets Haines kids hooked on ice fishing

Alaska Department of Fish and Game teamed up with the Haines Library and the American Bald Eagle Foundation to put on a day of ice fishing for kids.

Jessie Gann squealed as her dad pulled up a Dolly Varden. It was their fourth this afternoon. She danced around the wiggling fish, smiling. They were out on the ice at Mosquito Lake, about 30 miles out the highway from Haines, for the third annual Kid’s ice fishing day.

Richard Chapell is the Area Biologist for the Sport Fish Division if Alaska Fish and Game. He said the event is supposed to be fun and educational.

“Kids are learning that fish live under the ice,” he said. “We just see a blank white landscape around us, but there are animals under the ice and they live here all year round.”

The ice fishing day is a partnership with the Haines Library and the American Bald Eagle foundation. It’s a coordinated effort to make sure that children who live here understand and have access to the natural resources around them.

Kids learn the difference between the two fish they can hope to catch at the lake: Dolly Varden Char and Cutthroat trout. Chapell also taught young anglers the regulations and why they’re important.

“Dolly varden are very abundant fish, you find them everywhere throughout the Chilkat drainage. The bag limit on those is ten a day per license holder. There’s no size limit on those. But the cutthroat trout are rarer fish. The bag limit on those is two a day and they have to be between fourteen and twenty-two inches long or you have to let ’em go,” he explained.

The size and bag limits are to manage populations. The Department wants small fish to have a chance to mature and reproduce. The size cutoff for big fish is designed so multiple people get a chance to catch and release a trophy-size fish.

Fish and Game provided rods and lures. The rods are short because they just have to dip into a hole. Chapell said that in a pinch a stick with line wrapped around it will also work. Live bait isn’t allowed at the lake , so they used brightly colored lures called jigs. They’re plastic bait that’s made to resemble small water animals.

The ice on Mosquito Lake is two and a half feet thick, so the group brought out a power auger to make holes. Otherwise, getting a hole in thick ice can be a barrier to fishing. Edie Granger lives at Mosquito Lake. She was out fishing with her granddaughters.

“It’s nice to have that motor powered auger! This is one thing on the lake we haven’t done yet,” she said.

Haines Library Education Director Jolanta Ryan drove a van load of kids out to the lake. There were about fifty participants. Ryan set up a table with hot dogs, cocoa, and s’mores. People could warm up and roast their snacks over a crackling fire.

Fish are just one part of the ecosystem out at Mosquito Lake. Josh Sanko, the program coordinator at the American Bald Eagle Foundation, took a group of kids on a nature walk to learn about the ecology of the area. He instructed them to be quiet and observe the wildlife around them. They looked for evidence of animals around the lake and he showed the group evidence of an otter fishing spot: a break in the ice, a slope for sliding into the water, and a patch of scat.

“We’re out here fishing; there are other things out here fishing,” he said. “Animals do the same things that we do, just in different ways.” After their mini-ecology lesson, the kids dispersed back to the fishing holes. Their colorful parkas were like confetti on the snow covered lake.