Matthew McConaughey on Ice

What good is the heat of summer time, without the cold of winter to provide it sweetness.

~ John Steinbeck

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Name me old fashioned, or better but, make your self an old fashioned (1 half ouncesBourbon or Rye whiskey, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, 1 Sugar dice, Few dashes plain water),  and sit again in a comfortable chair, perhaps near a warming hearth,  throw in a overlaying quilt for good measure, or slip into a sweltering snuggie, and think about this radical considered mine about ice fishing:  it’s presupposed to be chilly.

Actually cold.

Now I have been ice fishing since a bit boy, introduced to the sport by my father, who took me on winter weekends to a variety of modest-sized lakes and farm ponds in the upstate New York area I was raised.  And while there have been occasions when the sun shined robust and the wind died down and the temp was good (not too heat so the top ice will get slushy, and not too cold that you simply turned a part of the highest ice should you stood nonetheless for too long), the norm was to feel some degree of discomfort, even pain, from the circumstances.

And that’s okay.  That’s part of ice fishing.  No less than that’s what I consider.

Which brings me to Matthew McConaughey’s newest tv advert for the Lincoln Motor Company.  In this collection, for those who haven’t seen, viewers are gifted with a double sensory gross sales expertise: we hear the Oscar winner’s interior philosophical musings (Descartes with a Texas twang), and see his ruggedly good-looking exterior both driving about or engaged in deep-thought activity (in one memorable scene he stares at a billiard table and balls as if gripped with catatonia).

Regardless of my sarcasm, I don’t thoughts these advertisements.  And I’ve all the time appreciated McConaughey as an actor, particularly in comedic roles (his turn as a TiVo-obsessed Hollywood agent in Tropic Thunder slays me).  But one thing doesn't sit proper with me in this spot, which uses ice fishing on a stunning, shimmering lake as a visible and thematic backdrop.  Jared Rosenholtz, writing in Automotive Buzz, does nicely to sum up the storyline:

The advert begins with McConaughey putting on gloves and cranking up the heat for all three rows of his Aviator. He then will get out of the car to carve a fishing gap into the ice. As he returns to take a seat in the tailgate space, he murmurs, “Beats jiggin’ in a shanty,” as one among his McConaughey-isms. He then relaxes in the heat of his Aviator, sketches in his journal, and whistles a well-known tune.

On the end of the business, McConaughey, using binoculars, peers out as the flag on the “tip-up” he positioned over the opening snaps into the air, the indication of a fish. Because the advert fades to black, and for Lincoln, a time when viewers run to verify their credit score scores, he jauntily leaves the heat and opulent comfort of the Aviator to say his catch.

It’s a cool business (no pun meant), however it misses the mark of actuality in so many ways.  For one, as Frank Kacprzynski, an avid and professional ice fisherman dwelling in Rochester, New York, who has taught me many a greatest apply to employ in pursuit of perch and blue gill, crappie and sunnies and different aquatic creatures swimming underneath frozen water, said to me, “He’s not sporting a hat, and it seems to be to be freezing!”

In fact, hiding that golden, wavy hair from viewers can be merciless, and in addition inconsistent with the collection’ theme of the car-loving rebel-without-a-cause (or hat).  But there’s another thing that catches and bothers the attention of experienced ice anglers: the substantial distance between McConaughey and the tip up, far enough he needs binoculars to maintain monitor of the motion.  As Frank continued, considerably exasperated, “You need to be close to a tip up when a fish hits and get there quick to set the hook, in any other case it'll hold operating and operating with the bait and will eventually spit it out.”  Or swallow it and the pointed barb into its abdomen, akin to a dying sentence for a fish.  So if you wish to follow catch and launch, having to stroll out a half-mile or so to hook a fish, regardless of the tune passing over your lips, is  not the best way to go.

Also, as Frank defined, just because the flag of the tip up went up, that doesn’t imply the fish is “on.”  It just may need brushed the bait, or even swam by with enough drive to release the locking mechanism.  “So he goes all the best way on the market, across the lake, for nothing.  And he’s on their lonesome.  Which is not a sensible move if you wish to be protected, regardless of how thick the ice is.  How come there are not any other fishermen?  And the way come he was capable of roll up right on the lake’s edge?  Often, there’s lots or designated space to park.”

I didn’t have solutions to Frank’s questions, however I knew, like me, he was triggered by the ad.  But he ended our speak on an accepting, if not resigned word.

“Nicely, they’re promoting automobiles,” he stated with a sigh.  “Not ice fishing.”

Precisely.  But I am right here to sell ice fishing.   I’m in love with the game.  It calms me and excites me.  Time when I am on the ice moves so fast that an hour seems like a minute, regardless of if the chew is on or not.  I’m additionally a purist, or no less than a minimalist in terms of ice fishing.  As I wrote a couple of years back in a really brief piece titled, “Men With out Huts” for On The Water journal:

I’m not judging ice fishermen that utilize wind-stopping tents, luxury model shelters, or any assemble to courageous the weather in pursuit of prey, however my allegiance lives with the parents who plop down on the onerous end of a bucket, or on their knees if a bucket seems too pretentious, and stare right into a cylindrical gap like stiff-necked egrets, who wait patiently whereas their toes crinkle with frostbite and their noses drip frost, wait within the face of hypothermia and hallucinations that make the opening under them seem a welcome chasm to another world, wait until, like the miracle of creation itself, the line within the water grows taut, the top of the elfin-sized pole twitches, and in that prompt all is forgotten – the frostbite, the sleet-thick snot, the existential fantasy, even the specter of dying is put on hold, for it is time to set the hook and pull up the line and find out, as soon as again, why a fish that hardly matches sideways in a frying pan, is value all the difficulty.

Anyway, time to verify the climate.  It’s nicely under freezing right here in New York.  Every week or extra of this and it’s time to get out the bucket and jigging pole.  Anybody have Mr. McConaughey’s quantity?  I wouldn’t thoughts a carry to the ice in his Aviator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq4Qj_vG9Tg

The publish Matthew McConaughey on Ice appeared first on The Good Men Project.

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