Family Ice Fishing Day

Originator of Family Ice Fishing Day, Justin Hawkens, cordially invites all ice fishing enthusiasts and enthusiasts in training to join the fun on February 22 for the Fourth Annual Family Ice fishing Day!

The party starts setting up at 7 a.m. as fishermen, women and kids set up their chairs and drop their lines.

This year, kids are invited to join the Crappy fishing seminar. Everyone who attends the class will receive a participation prize. There will also be raffles and other prizes.

Lunch, which is served around noon, will be chili with corn bread and cinnamon rolls.

Hawkens expects between 300 and 500 guests this season as, “The weather is supposed to be more tolerable this year.” He says that as soon as the snow flies, he starts getting calls for the date and volunteers offering to help.

“It’s growing quite bit in popularity,” he says.

Hawkens advocates “keeping it simple”. He starts asking for donations and sponsorships about a month before fishing day and Gillette, Pine Haven as well as people and companies from around the state participate in the contributions.

Usually, around 20 volunteers help with that aspect as well as turn up at the event to set up wall tents, tables, manage the raffles and cook. “This way the organizers get to have fun as well; it’s not a job, it’s a passion,” he says.

When the idea came to Hawkens, he believed that a few fellows who shared his passion for fishing would join the party and that would be that, “But over the years, the word has just traveled.”

As the organization grows, though, Hawkens hopes to initiate one particular program: “A mentorship program through the state of Wyoming to help kids who don’t have a father figure in their lives, matching them up with our guys and creating a relationship year round. Every one of our mentors is going to invite the youngster to come along to a fish fry or something like that. I can see us getting into something like that here in the near future.”