When hosts around Pittsburgh unveiled their Super Bowl smorgasbords last Sunday, sunfish was probably not on many menus.

A tasty exception were the bluegill tacos Post-Gazette outdoors editor John Hayes served a few hours after their main ingredient was swimming under six inches of Greene County ice.

Hayes and I investigated the interest in ice-fishing that seems to be kindling across Western Pennsylvania. Step 1 was to sample some fishing. It was most enjoyable research.

To mimic the challenge faced by those contemplating a first-time venture into ice-angling, we went about it as simply as we could. We used a hand-powered auger, uncomplicated panfish rods, an old previously unused Pocket Fisherman, a plastic tip-up and my daughter's childhood sled to transport our equipment.

We also shunned big water and exotic locations. We went to a farm pond, the kind of water you might drive by in the country and never notice.

If we could have fun and success on this minimalist outing, ice-fishing holds adventure for anyone.

Fortunately for hungry guests at Hayes' Super Bowl party, we caught fish. Bobbers bobbed and tip-up flags flailed so consistently that we rarely got comfortable on our 5-gallon bucket and camp chair. A mound of plump bluegills accumulated on the ice, taco-bound.

The fundamentals of catching bluegills and other panfish through the ice are straightforward and readily mastered:

• Go where the fish are. If you don't know the body of water, estimate from visible geography where creek channels or drop-offs may be.

• Use some simple device that can store line and suspend bait below a hole.

• Sweeten a smallish hook (No. 10 is good) with a waxworm, mealworm or some other bait available in winter. We got most bites by sinking waxworms impaled on tiny teardrop jigs until the line went slack, then lifting them a foot or so off the bottom. Our rods had easy to use "spring bobbers" that can detect faint nibbles.

In addition to the "cool" breezes across the ice, another refreshing thing about ice-fishing is that it can be as simple as you want to keep it.

"[First-time anglers] don't need much to get started -- a couple of cheap tip-ups and little ice rods and a few jigs and bait," said Joe DeMicheles, co-owner of Allegheny Bait and Tackle in Tarentum. "You can catch fish all day on a rod that costs 10 bucks. You need an auger, of course. Hand-powered ones go for about $65. You're talking about getting into a whole new outdoor activity for under a hundred bucks."

Nor is specialized clothing a concern.

"Most of the time you can just wear the same clothes you wear to hunt deer," DeMicheles said.

Gear needs can be more specialized for perch, walleyes and pike, especially on larger bodies of water. Anglers should remember that the fishing license year ended Jan. 31 and a new current license is required to fish through the ice.

But be advised, it may take some persistence to find even basic gear. At a big destination outdoor store where I looked for tackle an attendant said, "We had a whole display of ice stuff that sat here for three years and nobody looked at it. Now it's all gone in two weeks."

The upswing in ice fishing isn't just hearsay. The Fish and Boat Commission reports that fishing license sales for the period Jan. 1-31, 2009 were 5 percent higher than the year before.

In a marginal climate like Western Pennsylvania's, ice-fishing opportunity is linked to weather. January 8 began a string of 14 straight days when the temperature never rose above freezing in Pittsburgh, dipping as low as -7 on January 16.

That span was broken only by a two-day spell when the mercury courted the 50s. Temperatures in mountainous parts of the region remained lower.

"It's real simple," explained Tom Shockey of S&S Bait and Tackle in Chalk Hill. "This year we've got ice. At first we didn't have a lot of ice gear stocked, but we got ice and now everybody's decided to go fishing."

"It's really picking up," said Dorothy Bohr, owner of Moraine Fishing and Camping on Lake Arthur in Butler County.

"I'm sure there will be more if the weather gets a little milder and we still have ice."