When I was a kid, my dad would sometimes take me ice fishing on the local lake in winter. A lot of folks in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota go ice fishing every year. When I was the Wisconsin State Climatologist, one of my jobs was to call the official closing and opening of the lakes surrounding Madison WI (gotta keep those bar bets honest, as well as the climate record). Ice always lasted longer in cold La Niña winters than in warm El Niño winters. But with the warmer temperatures inmost recent years, the ice season is getting shorter and the culture of ice fishing is starting to go away. The University of Minnesota has an interesting story about the importance of ice roads and ice fishing to the Great Lakes region here.
