By Steve Weisman

Sometimes, it takes a picture to prove that a fishing story is true. Well, when my fishing buddy told me this story that I am about to describe, he knew he would probably need visual support for me to believe his story. So, with photo support that you see, I’m about to spin a real-honest-to-goodness-ice fishing “story.”

First, a little background. My fishing buddy’s name is Denny Harms, (Harmsy) and he and I used to teach and coach together back in the 1980s at Estherville Lincoln Central. We also spent of our winter down time ice fishing.

Our ways parted when he moved to Sioux City to continue his coaching career and has since retired in Lawton. Still, we kept in contact, have always gotten together each Walleye Opener and shared lots of “fishing” phone calls. Now for his latest true ice fishing story.

On a northeast South Dakota lake

It was late winter, and Harmsy and several of his Lawton fishing cronies headed to northeast South Dakota for some late ice walleye and perch fishing. The word was out that the best bite was tipping the lures with a minnow head. With several other anglers around, a lot of minnow bodies were tossed on the ice. Between crows and other scavengers, they were quickly cleaned up.

So, one of the mornings that Harmsy and his buddy are out in their sled/tent portable shelter, they saw this four-legged creature appear, going from spot to spot picking up the minnow bodies for a little dessert. What was it? It turned out to be a “minnow-fed” mink.

As Harmsy watched out the window, the mink began to work toward his shelter. Harmsy put a little “minnow bait” just outside the base of the tent. It wasn’t long before the fabric near Harmsy’s left foot moved, and the mink stuck its head in to see what was going on inside. It must have thought if there was food outside, there must be more of the good stuff inside. It looked around, and then got spooked and took off.

So, Harmsy set his trap-LOL! As he and his friend went through their minnows, he began to place them just on the outside of the fabric, then under the fabric and then in the shelter. Sure enough, the mink could smell the fresh minnows and was lured back. First it downed the ones outside, then the mink’s head appeared as it nosed its way inside the frame…and it kept on eating until it was right smack dab in the middle of the ice holes and rods and flashers and buckets.

Harmsy told me that the mink never showed any fear and never became aggressive. It just walked around sniffing for more dessert! The photos show it moving around between buckets and rods. Harmsy’s friend eventually threw out a tiny perch that it readily took.

One of the photos shows the mink with its head down the opening in one of the buckets. It had smelled the walleye inside the bucket and was going to see how easy it would be to reach down and grab the walleye. However, that’s where Harmsy drew the line. He tapped the mink on the back with his rod tip and told it, “No! Not the walleye.” That caught the mink’s attention, and it abruptly left the shelter. However, the thought of a fresh minnow dessert was enough to lure the mink back several more times during that day.

Harmsy holds the nice walleye he caught and then put in the bucket – that Harmsy was not going to let the mink pilfer.

Mink puts its head in the bucket to see what fish it can take.