A Hard-Water World: Ice Fishing and Why We Do It (Hardcover)

by Greg Breining (Author), Layne Kennedy (Photographer)
Key Phrases: hand auger, ice fishermen, ice hole, Mille Lacs Lake, Sebago Lake, Lake Winnebago (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

To the uninitiated, ice fishing seems improbable, wacky, and dangerous. But every winter, more than 2 million hardy northerners go to their place on the lake: literally on the lake.
 
Striking storytelling photographs by Layne Kennedy and engaging essays by outdoor writer and fisherman Greg Breining capture the quirky world of ice fishing-its natural beauty and solitary subzero vigils, along with its oddball practices and practitioners.

Kennedy and Breining take readers to fun-filled if bizarre festivals that include "Guys on Ice" in Door County, Wisconsin, and the supremely self-mocking International Eelpout Festival on Minnesota's Leech Lake, which honors a slimy, potbellied, finny critter. Photos offer peeks inside ice houses that range from a plastic-bag cocoon to an impossibly luxurious Adirondacks ice residence with front porch and wet bar. Travel to a frozen lake in the Boundary Waters, to ice cities that form and disband overnight, and to the Volga River near Moscow, shadowed by the KGB.
 
Most importantly, A Hard-Water World allows the reader to enjoy the beauty, wonder, and, yes, insanity of ice fishing in the comfort of home.

Layne Kennedy's photographs have been published in National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, and other magazines. Greg Breining writes frequently about the outdoors for national magazines and newspapers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press; 1 edition (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873516249
• ISBN-13: 978-0873516242
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #388,015 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #4 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Hunting & Fishing > Fishing > Ice Fishing
  #38 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Subjects > Sports

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ice Fishing for the Obsessed, February 8, 2009

By	C. Foley "summa reader" (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased this book for my Minnesota brother who would rather be ice fishing than doing anything else in the winter, including reading, and he pronounced the book "excellent." We consider him a little odd so I read the book myself for a little enlightenment and found it covers the sport from all angles and with beautiful photos. It was fascinating to read about the special equipment and ice fishing "houses" from shacks to palaces. The comaraderie of those involved comes across with the narrative on every page.