All Things That Grow Have Roots

My twin brother John and I were about six years old the winter we tagged along on another ice-fishing adventure with our dad and his fishing partner, Ed Tyc. After a long walk to a known submerged rock-hump, the father-friend duo took turns drilling holes with a 7-inch Mora hand auger. Meanwhile, the brothers methodically skimmed each hole free of ice shavings.

We used what every ice angler did back then—stick-rods, bait, and bobbers. Trusted electronics, convenient flip-top shelters, even ice-fishing rod and reel combos didn’t exist. Fortunately that evening, 3- to 4-pound walleyes were present and we had our limit before sunset.

A few years later in the late 1970s, three young ice-fishing pioneers—the messenger, a businessman, and one young savant—did their part to modernize the ice-fishing world. Of age in their careers at the right time and place, fruition of their goals arrived with a vengeance.

The Messenger—In-Fisherman Editor In Chief Doug Stange’s foresight and efforts to educate, promote, and grow the world of ice fishing were rooted in his repertoire long before he started his media career, here. He organized and hosted many ice-fishing seminars and penned countless groundbreaking articles that helped readers develop into better ice anglers and ultimately catch more fish. He’s also the man who convinced the “powers-that-be” to agree to covering ice fishing in In-Fisherman magazine and, eventually, to publish this annual Ice Fishing Guide.

“The exact same day in the early ’80s that we decided to expand our ice-fishing coverage in In-Fisherman, a man by the name of Paul Grahl walked into our office,” Stange says. “He brought with him this huge black door-to-door-like salesman’s box that, to everyone’s surprise, contained the most impressive collection of ice-fishing gear any one of us had ever seen. The most important item Paul pulled out of his box of goodies was the Polar Tip-up, one of the most revolutionary designs of the time. Paul guaranteed his plastic tip-up was strong and wouldn’t break and wouldn’t freeze, no matter what the temperature—and he was right. The exact design has worked perfectly all these years.”

A Business Man—According to HT Enterprises’ CEO Paul Grahl, “I can’t tell you how excited I was, by mere coincidence and fate, to be standing in the doorway at In-Fisherman headquarters at the beginning of the ice-fishing revolution. I had all this neat ice gear I was selling door-to-door at bait shops across the ice belt, but it was hard to sell without the right education to create a demand.

“I was aware the market didn’t have anything like the Polar Tip-up in either design or quality,” he says. “And I also knew I could build it at an affordable price. When In-Fisherman started educating people about ice fishing with full-blown feature articles about how to use my tip-up, the door swung wide open to a world full of information-starved anglers. It was a major business boom and we haven’t looked back since.”