(photo by Steve Weisman) Dave Genz displays a Boji gill taken last winter during the taping of an ice fishing show.

By Steve Weisman

know what’s funny? I find every season to be my favorite season. Spring, summer, fall and winter…each of my outdoor activities fall into one of these seasons. How lucky can a person be!

As each season moves toward its end, I may still be in that season’s activities, but I am also beginning to transition and think about the upcoming season.

That’s where I am at right now, especially after the recent snow and cold snap. There’s still late, late season open water fishing (especially at Chamberlain, SD) on our major lakes if the temperatures creep back up and several hunting seasons going on, but in the distance (maybe not that far away), I can see it…ice fishing is coming.

It is at this time from early November to the end of November that ice fishing open houses occur. Many of you may have already attended one of them locally: Stan’s Bait and Tackle (Nov. 3), Clear Lake Bait and Tackle (Nov. 2-4), Kabele’s Trading Post (Nov. 10), or even headed to Sioux Falls for the Ice Institute (Nov. 9-11). There is one last one, the granddaddy of them all the St. Paul Ice Fishing and Winter Sports Show (Nov. 30-Dec. 2) presented by Clam Outdoors.

I attended two this year. First, I went to Clear Lake on Nov. 3 and then went to Kabele’s Trading Post on Nov. 10. I was invited by Kevan Paul to present a seminar at the Clear Lake Bait and Tackle Ice Season Kickoff on Saturday, Nov. 3. Kevan gave me an easy topic, tactics for catching my number one favorite fish, “Boji Gills.”

As I prepared my PowerPoint presentation, I was taken aback by the changes that I have witnessed in ice fishing over my 65 years of ice fishing. Just go into any of our local bait shops or watch videos on You Tube, and you can see how ice fishing today is truly cutting edge! Look at this list: the high tec clothing, the refined fishing shelters, the fishing electronics, wide range of auger options, portable heaters, the specialized rod and reel combos, the variety of ice lines, the tackle and lures for each kind of fish. The list goes on and on!

We are truly in the new age of ice fishing. So many great products, manufacturers and pro staffers out there to help anglers have the best experience possible.

Where it all started

What is truly amazing, though, is that all of this can be traced back to one man!  Dave Genz, known as Mr. Ice Fishing, is the man who truly brought ice fishing out of the dark ages and into the modern age of ice fishing. Dave and I go back a long way to when he began to bring his ice fishing tournaments called Trap Attacks to West Okoboji in the late 1980s. He would always have his own Genz seminar the evening before, and never being a shy person, the first time I attended a seminar, I went up to Dave and introduced myself. Ever since, Dave and I have been friends, and my son and I fished the Okoboji Trap Attack several times.

My indirect tie to Dave actually goes back years before that when I bought my first Genz Fish Trap in the early 1980s and soon witnessed a sea of blue covered portable ice shacks (that fold over like an accordion or a clam) that could be seen across the frozen tundra. It all began in his garage in the late 1970s.

Mobility now became the norm, and anglers could move all over and find the fish rather than sitting in one spot waiting for them to come by.

Always a visionary, Dave kept the ideas coming. Working with Vexilar, he came up with the Ice Box, which could hold a portable flasher. Still highly popular, it is now called the Vexilar Genz Pack. Then came the Winter Fishing System and the lures and tactics to seek out and find fish. The key word now became mobility and then there was the Genz cadence…even today, Dave continues to be the leader of the Ice Fishing Revolution. Each year more lures and baits come out.

A humble man, willing to talk to anybody about ice fishing, Dave’s goal is for ALL ice anglers to be successful. As I prepared my powerpoint, I realized that so much of my presentation was based on what Dave has taught all of us anglers over the years.

His first time fishing Boji gills brought the same results as mine: a big goose egg. The locals cleaned up, but Dave’s first experience and my own first experience were the same. We had a great learning curve if we wanted to catch bluegills in the gin clear waters of West Okoboji.

Now, 40 years after moving to northwest Iowa, here I was preparing a presentation on that exact topic!

For the past several years, I have been a pro staffer for Clam Outdoors, mainly because Dave Genz is our spokesman. The products are great and I enjoy the relationships I have developed with other pro staffers. However, my hope is that I can do like Dave and help others learn how to catch those clear water Boji Gills.