A mid-Michigan resident finds time with his day job to inform the public about safe ice fishing tips.
The most important part of ice fishing is knowing the conditions. That is why Martin Szeliga, also know as the Airborne Angler, takes to the skies.
“It’s 1,100 square miles of the Saginaw Bay that people fish usually. And there is a satellite that provides us a visual, but it’s limited by cloud cover so it’s, it can be very long time between pictures, and ice fishermen are not very patient,” Szeliga said.
When the Linwood resident got back from the Marine Corps with his pilot’s license, he decided to help out.
“So, I said well I can go up and take a look and some pictures, and I posted them on my personal page, it got really popular so I thought I would start a separate page just to direct people to that as they don’t wanna see pictures of my normal life I’m sure,” Szeliga said.
Szeliga’s Facebook page, the Airborne Angler, has nearly 16,000 followers.
He works a day job as a technician, so he has to find personal time to keep fishermen informed.
“I have a couple cameras and you know, when I’m flying I try to take pictures of the most popular public launches where most guys will be launching from, to give them kind of a bird’s eye view of what to expect,” Szeliga said.
He posts videos once a week when the ice is forming or melting.
“A lot of times, just like happened this year, by the time I landed the plane on the two-hour flight, it had already broken apart in pieces, so it was already old information. So, you know, that’s, that’s scary when it’s, when it’s happening that fast,” Szeliga said.
Szeliga’s favorite launch site is the west side of the bay, but he said everyone’s been doing well this winter.
