Lake of the Woods has a well-deserved reputation for producing big pike through the ice as winter gives way to spring, but after nearly three hours of tip-up fishing without a flag, Alan Peterson could have been excused for wondering if this was going to be one of those days.

Instead, he drilled more holes in 5 to 10 feet of water, hoping the small moves eventually would put the bait in front of a fish and serve up the opportunity to yell “Flag!” — the tell-tale cry that a toothy critter had found the bait to its liking.

That, in a nutshell, is the essence of late-winter tip-up fishing, which is as much a social occasion as an exercise in trying to catch a fish. And on this perfect Sunday morning that teased of approaching spring — complete with the first swan sighting of the season — catching a pike or two would be a bonus.

There’d be time for coffee, venison sticks and conversation as we waited.

“I would consider good tip-up fishing to be 15 legitimate flags,” said Peterson, of Warroad. “I commit to five hours, so if I go for five hours and I get between 12 and 15 flags, I consider that to be pretty good.

“If you get more than that, it’s a treat. And if you get a 40-inch pike, that’s what you came out for.”

About the tip-up

A tip-up, for the uninitiated, is a fishing device with a flag that “tips up” to signal a strike. Old-school tip-ups usually consist of a submerged spool that attaches to a frame that is set over the hole in the ice, with a flag that clips on the spool to keep the bait at a set depth.

When a fish hits and pulls on the line, the spool turns and triggers the flag to “tip up,” signaling a strike; the angler then fights the fish using a hand-over-hand technique. Newer tip-ups integrate rods and reels into the design, allowing anglers more flexibility in playing the fish.

Peterson uses some of each tip-up style. Either way, every time a flag flies, the fish at the end of the line could be something special.

No wonder, then, that Peterson is on Lake of the Woods chasing pike at every opportunity once March rolls around.

“That’s one of the beautiful things about tip-up fishing,” he said. “You can go five hours (without a flag), and then your last hour, it can be so good. You can have 10 flags, and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘we can’t leave right now.’ ”

Home to the outdoors

A 2013 graduate of Warroad High School, Peterson, 30, has an office job at Marvin, the window and door manufacturer in Warroad. After spending five years working at the Marvin facility in Fargo and attending Minnesota State University Moorhead, he had an opportunity to come home about a year and a half ago.

Peterson, his girlfriend Mandy, and their black Lab Gracie, have a house on 15 acres just a hop and a skip from Lake of the Woods. Before living in Fargo, he spent four years at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Living back in northern Minnesota has been a perfect fit with his outdoors lifestyle.

“I’m spoiled,” he said. “I’m spoiled living up here. If I want to go catch walleyes after work, I just throw my kicker boat in and I go.”

New YouTube channel

Earlier this year, Peterson launched a YouTube channel he dubbed “North of Highway 2,” in which he shares stories and snapshots of life in northern Minnesota. Fishing content factors into the mix, of course, but the channel also includes thrift store trips, cooking, skiing and other outdoor recreation and three- to four-minute “Walk and Talk Wednesday” segments, in which Peterson and his black Lab, Gracie, stroll down the driveway while he talks about various aspects of northern life.

Gardening will be among the video segments on tap for this summer, Peterson says. To date, the channel has about 170 subscribers, and clips have drawn anywhere from about 100 views to more than 9,000 views for a video in which Peterson documents whiteout conditions on Lake of the Woods.

“My whole point in making the channel wasn’t to get a bunch of followers and views,” he said. “I’ve always wanted an excuse to buy a GoPro, so I bought a GoPro and just started doing it.”

On the ice

Typically, Peterson says, tip-up fishing gets better as temperatures rise and days grow longer, triggering the instinct for pike to stage near the mouths of streams and shallow bays to spawn.

So far, he says, the best pike fishing has been in the morning, but that wasn’t the case on this day. It was high noon when the first flag popped, “which completely contradicts my theory,” Peterson said.

The fish that tripped the first flag appeared to be a decent pike, but it spit the bait before Peterson could get it to the hole.

“Hopefully, that’s a good sign,” he said. “We’ve stuck it out all morning. I think we’re due for a few more flags.”

He was right; the next flag popped half an hour later. Peterson picked up the rod, set the hook and the battle was on.

“It’s big,” Peterson said as the rod bent toward the hole. “All I know is it’s big.”

Then it appeared at the top of the hole, a huge toothy head followed some 3 feet of feisty flopping northern pike.

It was easily his biggest of the winter so far, he said. Big pike have a completely different look than smaller members of the species, and this fish was strikingly beautiful.

“This is a huge pike,” Peterson said, admiring the fish. “Oh, my gosh.”

He’d left his tape measure at home, but there was enough pike extending beyond his 34½-inch ice fishing rod to safely say the fish was at least 40 inches long. A few quick photos, and Peterson released the pike to hopefully make someone else’s day.

By nature’s calendar, the best pike fishing of the season was yet to come, providing the ice holds up; pike season is continuous on Lake of the Woods.

After that, it will be time for spring sturgeon fishing on the Rainy River, open-water pike fishing, the Minnesota walleye opener, lake trout fishing in Ontario, spring hunts for morel mushrooms and a garden to plant.

So much to do and — for Peterson — so close by.

“I love the variety,” he said. “New activities just happen all the time.”

That’s life “North of Highway 2.”