1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to the field of fishing, trapping, and vermin destroying, and more particularly to improvements in fishing signal devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
The sport of ice fishing has evolved from what may have been an essential tool for survival in the northern latitudes many years ago. As may be recognized, during the long winter months there is no opportunity to grow or harvest plants or grains of any type. Man traditionally survived these long winter periods by storing root vegetables, fruits with good storage characteristics such as apples, and by smoking, drying, freezing or otherwise treating meats.
These types of food storage techniques could not always be relied upon. Root cellars and other food storage areas were susceptible to infestation by insect and animal pests, and by crop destroying diseases or undesirably accelerated ripening. As the saying goes, “one bad apple spoils the bunch.” Freezing, while seemingly reliable in the cold north, does not work during the occasional warm periods without special shelters. There are also many plants that do not freeze well. Finally, it was historically all but impossible to maintain the optimum sub-zero temperatures used with most modern freezers.
In addition to the challenges of storage, crop and animal production were anything but reliable on a local scale. Weather disasters, animal and insect pests, and diseases all could destroy or substantially reduce an expected harvest. Only through modern transportation and agricultural sciences such as crop genetics and plant and animal chemistry have these vagaries of crops and animals been overcome, such that a more even and predictable food supply is available.
Where sufficiently large and deep bodies of water are present to maintain fresh water below ice, fish survive the winter months. The fish have a reduced level of metabolism, meaning they slow down in the colder water, and so do not consume as much food nor travel as quickly about the body of water. These fish, if retrieved, make an excellent source of food and nutrients, and are often both tastier and nutritionally superior to the alternative foods available locally in these winter months. As a result, fish have long been used as a winter food source. The only challenge then is retrieving them in a desirable and appropriate way, especially in the severe conditions of winter. In view of the importance of fish to winter survival, much effort was made over the years to improve upon ice fishing.
One technique for retrieving fish which developed over the years is referred to as spearing, where a hole is cut in the ice, the water is illuminated by natural or artificial means, and a reflective material such as egg shells may be placed on the bottom of the body of water. Bail may be introduced into the water in the hole. A fisher will then hold a spear next to the opening of the ice, and wait for a fish to pass by or seek the bait. When the fish is positioned appropriately below the ice hole and seen by the fisherman, the fisherman will then rapidly drive the spear into the fish and pull the fish from the water. This type of fishing is quite labor intensive, requiring the full time and attention of a person wielding the spear. Consequently, rather than being a relaxing activity that can include social interaction, spearing is much more an individual activity requiring fairly intense concentration for long periods of time. Furthermore, only one hole may be pursued by a single person at a time. If the fish do not come close enough to the spearing hole to pursue the bait or pass under the ice hole, the fisherman will never have an opportunity to spear the fish. As a result, spearing is a relatively unpredictable method of fishing.
The alternative to spearing fish has been to lure the fish to artificial or live bait that conceals a hook. A hole through the ice is still required, and the bait is placed within the hole. When the fish takes the bait and is thereby hooked, the fisherman pulls the line, bait, hook and fish from the ice. In earlier times, the fisherman was limited in this pursuit of fish by the number of poles that could be held and manipulated, and the space between holes that could physically be reached simultaneously. In other words, only a few lines could be placed, essentially through the same hole or by holes within a few feet of each other. Nevertheless, the fisherman's attention could be diverted from the hole, since a strike would be signaled by a pull on the line, so that the fisherman would know to begin removal of the hooked fish. Consequently, ice fishing permits more social interaction than spearing.
In the modern era, various apparatus have been invented that permit a fisherman to place a plurality of hooked baits in different locations about a water body. Exemplary of this is U.S. Pat. No. 2,654,176 by Kachelski et al, entitled “Ice fishing tip-up,” the teachings which are incorporated herein by reference. Using apparatus such as illustrated by Kachelski, a fisherman may simultaneously fish in a number of relatively distantly separated locations. Some similar devices support an ice fishing pole, but as Kacehelski shows, the devices may alternatively substitute a spool of fishing line. With a plurality of lines and baits, the fisherman has a greater probability of catching fish than through a single hole. Furthermore, since fish tend to move about the lake in groups or schools, one location or another may yield fish on any given day, while other locations may not. As a result, these apparatus have gained substantial popularity, increasing both the likelihood of catching fish, and the average number of fish caught per day.
Since a fisherman using modern ice fishing apparatus may be fishing in several different locations simultaneously, there has been a necessity to provide some type of signaling, to notify the fisherman when one or more of these devices is triggered by activity on the line. Such devices are commonly known as tip-ups, since many will lay parallel to the ice when set and waiting for a strike, and then will pop up or pivot in response to a strike. Often times brightly colored flags are used as the signal, and the flags may commonly be held parallel to the ice against a spring force such as may be generated by the flag staff.
These ice fishing tip-ups have gained wide-spread acceptance by fishermen, since they substantially increase the productivity of the fishing trip while also often decreasing the time and attention which must be devoted to the ice hole. With good signaling, such as with a visible flag, the fisherman may even stay within a heated temporary or permanent shelter, and simply visually monitor the status of a plurality of tip-ups active outside of the shelter.
In spite of the utility that these devices provide, there are still some limitations that remain. The first of these is a susceptibility to loss and damage. As may be appreciated, the purpose of a tip-up is to signal the fisherman when a fish is on the line. Otherwise, the tip-up will remain very close to and parallel with the ice. Accompanying winter months is a certain amount of snow. On a snowy day, the tip-up will commonly become partially or completely hidden beneath the accumulation of snow. In such cases, the fisherman may lose track of the location of the tip-up, either being forced to abandon the apparatus or spend much time searching through the snow cover.
Not only doe the fisherman have to keep track of the location of each tip-up, but so do other parties who may be out on the ice at the same time. Since the tip-ups may be relatively remote from a fisherman or his shelter, it can be very difficult for someone traveling in a vehicle to know where these tip-ups are located. All too commonly, tip-ups are destroyed unintentionally by people in vehicles. In fact, this is such a common problem that there have been several reported occasions where state DNR (Department of Natural Resources) employees, who are responsible for enforcement of licensing and catch limits, have accidentally driven over and destroyed tip-ups.
Even when a tip-up is not actually driven on, it is desirable for those traveling in vehicles to stay a reasonable distance from the tip-up. This is because fish are known to be surprisingly sensitive to sound and vibration, and vehicular traffic upon the ice adjacent a hole generates both. Consequently, if a driver knows where a tip-up is located well in advance, the driver may choose a route which is farther removed from the tip-up. Otherwise, the driver may unintentionally and undesirably disrupt the fish and reduce the fisherman's catch for the day.
A number of artisans have designed tip-ups that illustrate the broader concept of a vertical projection that may visually identify the existence of or location of an ice fishing tip-up. Exemplary of such devices are U.S. Pat. No. 2,636,303 by Feigley et al, entitled “Tip-up for ice fishing”; U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,570 by Borisch, entitled “Ice fishing tip-up”; U.S. Pat. No. 3,213,561 by Roemer, entitled “Ice fishing tip-up”; U.S. Pat. No. 3,352,048 by Fleming, entitled “Ice fishing tip-ups”; U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,297 by Yates, entitled “Apparatus for ice fishing”; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,849 by Burgett, entitled “Ice fishing apparatus,” the teachings of each which are incorporated herein by reference. While each of these apparatus may intrinsically facilitate the location of an operating fishing tip-up through a vertically protruding staff, the identification of existence and location of an active tip-up is at the expense of easily and clearly knowing when a strike has occurred. In other words, since the staff is always up, it can be quite difficult at a distance to determine whether the strike indicator flag is extending vertically from the staff or merely supported on the staff in the ready position. In another U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,099 by Stewart entitled “Ice free tip up system,” the teachings which are incorporated herein by reference, a wind vane has been added to an ice fishing device. Like the aforementioned patents, the Stewart patent does not provide ready visual distinction between strike and wind vane. This may be best appreciated by recognizing that the wind vane flag will pivot, and so at times will be visible at a distance and at other times will not be visible, when the viewer is looking in the direction of or directly opposite to the wind. In these instances, even if a strike occurs, the fisherman may inadvertently mistake the strike flag for the wind vane and incorrectly assume that there has not yet been a strike. The wind vane also provides an undesirable source of motion and vibration that can interfere with proper luring of fish to bait. In addition, Stewart and many of the other aforementioned patents suffer from poor construction which does not permit easy and compact storage with simple and rapid set-up. What is desired then is an improved apparatus for indicating the existence of a tip-up, which also is readily and compactly stored, and which does not detract from the ready identification of a strike.
In addition to the aforementioned limitations, another limitation exists in the art of fishing tip-ups. A fisherman may one day be fishing for small pan fish such as crappies and bluegill, and may on another day fish for larger game fish such as walleye and northern pike. Unfortunately, when fishing for larger game fish, the bait used by many fishermen is nearly as large as the pan fish. Consequently, if the tip-up flag is sensitive to and triggered by pan fish, the hooked bait used to lure large game fish will undesirably trigger the strike indicator flag. Alternatively, if the strike flag is insensitive to the game fish bait, it will also not reliably trigger upon the occurrence of a strike by pan fish. A similar problem arises with vibrations that may be caused by wind turbulence, nibbles, or other factors. These vibrations may result in the strike flag being triggered prematurely, simply because the vibration causes a gradual, definite movement between the strike flag and trigger. In order to prevent vibrations from prematurely releasing the flag, U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,673 by Dumar, entitled “Indicator light for an ice fishing tip-up,” the teachings which are incorporated herein by reference, illustrates a trigger that has grooves in the form of detents, which results in larger shoulders on the trigger. The flag staff rests within those grooves, and so is not affected by vibration. However, this design does not eliminate the need for alternative forces of activation, and instead simply makes the tip-up less able to be used with smaller pan fish.
A few artisans have attempted to address this need by providing a strike indicator flag sensitivity control or adjustment. The patents relevant thereto, and the teachings which are incorporated herein by reference, include U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,099 by Stewart, entitled “Ice free tip up system,” which describes wing nut as adjusting line tension required to rotate a trip lever; U.S. Pat. No. 5,152,093 by Bartys, entitled “Fishing tip-up construction”; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,940 by Gross et al, entitled “Tip-up device with adjustable sensitivity”. These adjustments require special constructions and components that are less desirable, and in several cases not adaptable to fishing tip-ups of the Kachelski et al construction. Consequently, there also exists a need for a simple and reliable way to provide sensitivity adjustment without sacrificing cost, complexity or convenience.
Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition copyright 1983, is additionally incorporated herein by reference in entirety for the definitions of words and terms used herein.