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Man finds more than a dozen agates on Lake Superior through crystal clear ice

With just a hatchet, his hands and years of ice fishing experience, Mike Zganjar found about a dozen agates on a recent walk along the ice.

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — Among the many pastimes popular in Minnesota is agate hunting -- scanning the shores of Lake Superior for the official state gemstone.

Relatively easy to find in the summer when the shores of the great lake aren't frozen over, agates are a bit tougher to collect in winter. Between the ice and frigid temperatures, it's not exactly ideal agate hunting season.

Unless, of course, you're an eagle-eyed ice fisherman who knows what to look for.

Mike Zganjar, who's from near Gilbert, Minnesota and works in Grand Marais, shared a video in our Facebook photography and videography group That's So Minnesota of him walking on crystal clear ice with the caption, "Makes finding agates and other neat rocks very easy!"

In the video, Zganjar holds an agate that's slightly larger than a golf ball over a hole in the Lake Superior ice, just big enough for an arm to reach through.

Zganjar said he has a large collection of agates from over the years, but this is the first time he'd ever been able to pluck them from Lake Superior through several inches of ice.

So how'd he do it?

First, experience comes into play. Zganjar said he's been ice fishing since he was a young kid and has years of experience judging if ice is safe.

"Really clear ice without imperfections, you know it's strong ice," he said. "Somebody without experience on ice, I would not recommend doing it. It's easy to make a mistake and misjudge the ice." Zganjar saw a few cracks that he needed to avoid, and given his background knowledge, assumed the ice was about three inches thick. 

Zganjar said he wasn't expecting to be able to walk on the ice, so once he spotted an agate worth fishing for, he went to the local hardware store and bought a hatchet -- which he then used to carve out a hole. Turns out his ice estimate wasn't far off, and the stuff he was walking on was three and a half inches thick.

After that, it all got pretty simple. Zganjar said he stuck his arm into the hole and grabbed the gem. He got about a dozen agates that day, and said if he ever has the chance to do it again he'd find a way to avoid having to plunge his arm into the freezing water.

Ready to start or add to your own agate collection? Here's what the Minnesota DNR says you should look for:

  • Visible band planes that give the rock a peeled texture, as though the bands were partially peeled off like a banana skin
  • Iron-oxide staining that can be many different colors, but most commonly shades of rust-red and yellow
  • Translucence produced by chalcedony quartz, best observed on sunny days
  • A glossy, waxy appearance, especially on a chipped or broken surface
  • A pitted texture on the surface of the rock, which are the result of knobs or projections from an initial layer of softer mineral matter deposited on the wall of the cavity where the agate formed

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