Local free lance writer, English teacher and bon vivante Ryan Flynn and I set off to Lake Winnepesauke Sunday to experience a slice of local americana, the Granite State Ice Fishing Derby. Our plan was to infiltrate "bob houses" and interview the contestants up close and personal. (How can "personal" be an adverb?) Anyway, the scene at Meredith was a veritable carnival on ice, with snowmobiles roaring everywhere, the scent of dead trout exceeded only by exhaust fumes and the smoke from sausage grilles.

The guy manning the dead-fish awards booth--Ernie--informed us that the state's Fish & Game Department is our enemy, and that they have much too much time on their hands, and probably want to raise taxes. Get this: they want to protect the population of fish in the lake! This sentiment was not well-received by Ernie's audience today. They came to kill.

Free-lance correspondent Flynn befriended several fisherfolk. His notes include the following generous insights: "After breathing in the exhaust of the hundred-or-so snowmobiles on Lake Winnepesauke and rubbing elbows with a number of mullet topped "fishermen" this afternoon at the Ice Fishing Derby in Meredith, I realized that there's a lot more to this whole ice fishing thing...just as any real sport involves strategy, so does ice fishing. It takes meticulous minutes of planning for a would-be ice fisher to randomly plop down his trailer and set up camp for an afternoon of drinking while the growling of snowmoblie engines scare off all of the fish. Indeed, ice fishing is not any oxymoron. Rather, it is simply a sport for morons."