Minnesota Burning Man
November 15, 2015 2:10 PM   Subscribe

Drone video footage of the largest ice fishing tournament in the world from Gull Lake, Minnesota. (SLYT) There are over 20,000 holes in the ice and just as many anglers.
posted by growabrain (26 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
More like Freezing Man?
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:22 PM on November 15, 2015 [13 favorites]


Looks like the opposite of fun to me, but cool footage!
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:25 PM on November 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


This place
Ice Cold
Minnesota
Such nice folks
This ain't for them mall girls
St. Paul girls
Straight rods and reels
Fishin', just in
Frozen lake near Bemidji
Got holes in and bait tins
Hold the line and don't fidget
posted by jacquilynne at 2:42 PM on November 15, 2015 [7 favorites]


Minnesota Brrrning Man.

(as a 7-year old I cracked up a friend's mom by sticking my hands in a stream of very hot water and shouting "Brrrr!' totally spontaneously)
posted by jamjam at 2:46 PM on November 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Are there any... you know... fish left in the lake after this tournament?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:00 PM on November 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm frankly amazed that the ice can support that many people/cars/etc. - especially after it's been weakened by all those holes. Having grown up in the south, I'd be extremely leery about venturing out onto that.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:07 PM on November 15, 2015


It looks like they're keeping car traffic well away from the holes, and the holes are definitely gridded out, so there's some kind of plan they're following. But, that lake's about to see three or four solid months, with rare exceptions, where the temperature is below freezing. And it's not a huge lake, so it probably ices up pretty good.
posted by LionIndex at 3:14 PM on November 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


And, ice floats, so as long as you're not creating enough force locally to shear the ice, you can put all the cars on a lake you want.
posted by LionIndex at 3:15 PM on November 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've done this tournament twice I think. A few fish caught, but many a drink shared. Last time I want to say the ice was nearing 4ft thick, so theres nothing to worry about.
posted by sanka at 3:33 PM on November 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


Stearns County girls plus an ice fishing shelter of some sort was always a recipe for fun in my book. (I know Gull Lake isn't in Stearns County.)
posted by Sphinx at 3:40 PM on November 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


How do you something-something a polar bear?
Kick him in the ice hole.

I forget. /CRS
posted by maggieb at 4:02 PM on November 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Here you go, maggieb. That's one of my favorite stupid childish pun-jokes!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:31 PM on November 15, 2015


Are there any... you know... fish left in the lake after this tournament?

When I moved north to a place cold enough for ice fishing, it took me months of questioning to understand the sport. Do you catch more fish? (no) Different fish? (no) etc.

I finally realized that the goal of ice fishing isn't fishing, it's drinking booze. But people would judge a sport called "ice drinking" so they call it ice fishing instead and take fishing equipment along to keep up appearances.

This is a very long way of saying there are probably nearly as many fish in the lake after the tournament as before.
posted by Tehhund at 5:27 PM on November 15, 2015 [11 favorites]


Darn shame they only ran the drone during the day and didn't get any footage after dark, when the deafening house music starts up and all the trippy LED installations under the ice start flickering and pulsing.

I know, I know, it would scare the fish
posted by contraption at 5:28 PM on November 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


I'm frankly amazed that the ice can support that many people/cars/etc. - especially after it's been weakened by all those holes. Having grown up in the south, I'd be extremely leery about venturing out onto that.

The first time my grandfather drove us out onto a frozen lake to go ice fishing, I was leery. That dissipated after seeing how much ice he had to auger through in order to get to the water.

It augured well, I guess you could say!

*looks around, backs slowly away*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:42 PM on November 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


W/r/t ice supporting weight: I worked somewhere for a while where they regularly landed a C-17 on ice. The ice was roughly 2m thick, but still, for something as big as that, 2m didn't seem like much.

I think they don't do that anymore because of climate change.
posted by deadbilly at 5:43 PM on November 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


How in the world are they getting permission to use a Bruno Mars song on a drone video? Is he like a big ice fishing fan or something?
posted by HappyHippo at 6:03 AM on November 16, 2015


Because if he complains I imagine someone will offer him a nice, warm hat, scoot over on the bench in their ice house, and pass him a beer. It's how you make an outsider-to-ice-fishing understand the thing. (No, no words will be spoken -- but what words would suffice?)

Dang, I miss Minnesota.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:26 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Growing up in Montana, the "ice house" was an upturned 5 gal bucket. These people and their fancy shacks, pfft. We didn't need all that.

(Now that I live in Minnesota, an ice house does sound like more fun than the bucket. I used to freeze my @#$%!%!! off.)
posted by caution live frogs at 12:57 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Growing up in Montana, the "ice house" was an upturned 5 gal bucket. These people and their fancy shacks, pfft. We didn't need all that.

Heh. My grandparents, Finnish Canadians, also worshipped at the altar of al fresco ice fishing. Actually, I have never set foot in one of those fancy shacks. Not on personal principle, mind you, I was just deprived of the opportunity as a child.

*sobs*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:05 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


...the holes are definitely gridded out, so there's some kind of plan they're following.

I'm not sure "perforate the thin layer of ice that's keeping you from freezing to death" really qualifies as a plan.
posted by The Tensor at 2:20 PM on November 16, 2015


I was hoping there would be credits after this that simply stated "Wardrobe provided by Fleet Farm"
posted by baniak at 5:15 PM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


My grandparents used to have a cabin in one of the towns adjacent to Gull Lake, here is a drone-filmed video of their water tower.
posted by baniak at 5:18 PM on November 16, 2015


How in the world are they getting permission to use a Bruno Mars song on a drone video? Is he like a big ice fishing fan or something?
posted by HappyHippo at 6:03 AM on November 16 [+] [!]

From my limited experience, if a user used their Bruno Mars MP3 and added it to a drone video then uploaded it to Youtube, the ContentID system will identify and flag it as a copyright violation then check how the rights owner has flagged it. The rights owner would have registered their copyright of this song with Google beforehand and determined how they want ContentID to respond - either block your content (in which case your video will be muted or taken down) or the rights owner can implement shared monetization, in which case they benefit from views your video generates. You can also skip this entire step by directly uploading drone footage with no audio track, then going to Youtube and selecting from an entire list of monetized and non-monetized music available from their library, with a portion (or sometimes all?) of the advertising revenues going to the rights owner.
posted by xdvesper at 5:49 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


On the lake where I used to go ice fishing with my grandparents (Lake Wanapitei), they certainly would not have approved of this guy, on the same lake.

They didn't like snowmobiles. I think it's because they thought young guys using them were lazy. The reason being that my grandfather was a sniper on skis during the Winter War on the Finn side, and then, after coming to Canada, they had always skiied in to their camp near Sudbury in the winter.

But once my grandfather's hip gave out, it was strictly rolling out on the lake in theCaprice Classic. But slow - he knew the dangers from watching Russian columns of vehicles venture out over frozen lakes at the wrong time.

But when we went, it was always close to three feet of ice. The real danger kicks in when people go out too early or late - or when winter temperatures have been really uneven so there's rotten ice or fissures that can heave up. Local knowledge, etc. You also flag the hole in the ice when you're done.

From all that, I learned how you can stay safe and warm out on a frozen lake. And even have a bit of fun. The proper lunch is hot stew from a thermos.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:10 PM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Suddenly I remember my old favorite Apetor's On Thin Ice, AHHHHHH
posted by growabrain at 11:05 AM on November 17, 2015


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