FROM PAGE 1 the fishing? That could depend just where on the lake you chose to drill.

“A couple small ones,” Russ Pogodzinski said from the east end roughly midway between County O and the old beach where the Sportsman’s Club had set up headquarters. The old beach was also a chief drive-in and off point, as it has been other years. Pogodzinski directed us over to Jerome Hazen across the ice road and closer to the under ice location of the old railway trestle. Hazen had done somewhat better with his day’s fish haul.

“Been slow,” Hazen said when asked. “Lost a couple on the tip ups.” Still, he had caught some, with several sunfish and one northern cached on the snow above. Following the plowed ice roads over to a trio of friends the luck wasn’t as good. Dave Gass, Pete Ritter, and Josh Murphy were camped out over between the island and Fandry Park–with no fish luck. Asking for a picture, we happily obliged. Before long the announcer spoke. Meanwhile, the Choice Raffle, had ended. “We’ve drawn all the winning numbers,” he said over microphone. “So if you come up here (to the beach) and your name’s on the board, the cooresponding number is your prize.” Area businesses had contributed to the raffle prize options, it was revealed later, including but not limited to Hazuga’s True Value of Stanley, Romig’s Hardware of Gilman, Martino’s of Stanley, Hansen’s IGA, and Oemig’s Sport Shop, the last owned by Dave Oemig. One of the prizes, a Browning 7mm–08, had to picked up at the sport shop. Back to the fishing report.

“We got a bite,” Carter Weltzin and James Wampole reported, though like others the fishing had been slow. Another group (of adults) had the rather interesting idea to have an open fire on a shallow four-foot-high basin stand over the frozen water. Interesting, but seemingly dangerous as well, in case the fire basin should “fall” (it didn’t). We chose to avoid that area of the lake, nonetheless.

Meanwhile back on the beach, St. Joseph’s Lunch Box was doing a brisk business as always, with prices posted for lunch time menu items including soda and hot dogs. Before long it was all over, but for the prizes. So how’d that end go?

First there were the speeches, headed by Sportsman’s Club president Frank Dusick. Listing the many different ways that the Sportsman’s Club had contributed to Chapman Park, including but not limited to the maintaining the deer pen ($30,000) and aerators to fight hypoxia in underwater life, Dusick expressed hope that “in three to five years” the Club would be able to start selling deer from the park to outside. At present, five years testing are required to establish non-CWD status, and the period was reset after an Elk got out and had to be culled, the licenses for each herd being together. With that, we turn your attention to prize results, posted below.

The Stanley Sportsman’s Club held their annual Ice Fishing Contest on Chapman Lake on Saturday, February 20th. All proceeds go to improve Chapman Park and Lake.

The Stanley Sportsman’s Club wishes to thank all the people who attended our fishing contest this past weekend at Chapman Lake. It was a huge success thanks to all who sold tickets and worked to put on the contest. Again Thank you very much!