Again, this is a post entirely about my life rather than the usual talk of things some people might actually be interested in. Feel free to skip on past this one if you'd like.
Melissa's father is one of those outdoorsy type guys. He loves to hunt and fish, snowmobile and generally spend his time outside doing things. Personally, I've always considered ice fishing to be one of those things that crazy people do. Why would you go and intentionally sit on a frozen lake in the cold just to catch fish?
Of course, you could basically say the same thing about fishing in general. You spend a bunch of money on gear, a license, and maybe a boat. You go and spend hours and hours with a line in the water. If you catch something, you'll never get enough to pay for your license, let alone everything else you've bought.
But, I know just as well that you don't go fishing as a hunter gatherer's method of providing for the family, you do it to get out and get away. I figure that if I enjoy going camping just to wander around the woods, there's probably nothing wrong with hanging out on the ice just to hang out on the ice.
So, with some level of trepidation, I agreed to go ice fishing. Melissa's father was going off to the lake which his brother's house over looks. It's a small lake in Hugo, MN.
When we'd got out there, Rich (her Dad), and Russ (her Uncle) had already gotten everything set up. We arrived to hear that they'd not really caught anything yet. There was talk of a small Northern that had gone back in, but nothing besides that.
Rich grabbed the auger and drilled out a couple holes, set up his other ice house, and handed us a couple poles and we were off. Most of their tip-ups were set for Northern and Bass, but Melissa and I set out with some grubs on the line, we were shooting for some Sunnies. At least, that's what we were told. I was just shooting for whatever might grab on my line.
Something I should mention, though, is that I've been fishing quite a few times. In that time there's been a common theme. The first is that whenever I fish, I get tangled. I don't just mean that I get occasional snags or little knots. I'm talking about the fact that I've probably ruined around 1/2 of all the reels that I've ever used because they were so tangled they couldn't even be cut apart. The second theme is that I just plain don't catch fish.
It's not a bad thing, I've learned to enjoy the fishing and stopped being disappointed years ago, but I think have a 'skunk' to catch ratio of about 15:1. I'm not trying to be funny, either, I seriously don't catch fish.
It didn't take long before Melissa pulled out a tiny little Sunny. I had to take the 4 wheeler back to the house to grab my camera I'd forgotten, so she let it swim around the hole for a while.
Shortly after we'd tossed the little guy back, I ended up with a nibble. Thinking I had another Sunny on the line, but when the thing started trying to pull me into the hole, I knew I had something good. What I pulled out of the hole was a decent sized Bass. It came out of the hole, and suddenly the hook tore through it's lip and fell immediately back into the hole. It was ok, and of course you always have to have a story about the one that got away.
Shortly after, a few flags went up, one of which yielded a little Bass for Rich, after which Melissa and I took the 4 wheeler for a spin. We got back, had some hot chocolate and started back at it. Nothing was biting. Nibbling, yes, but not biting.
The sun started to go down, so we were told that it would be best switch to minnows an start aiming for Crappies. Again, as before, it didn't take long before Melissa pulled out another fish. Her Crappie was photographed and dropped down the hole.
Just a short time later, I was pulling a little Crappie out myself. It was small, and funny. I dropped it back and in the hole.
We sat with the lines in for another 20 minutes or so before we started packing it in. It was dark and now very cold, so we high tailed it out of there.
Once safely back at the house we dined on an excellent meal that Melissa's aunt prepared. It included hot roast beef and au jus (my apologies, I'm not sure if I've spelled that correctly) , chicken and wild rice soup and was capped off with a delicious chocolate cake with ice cream, and slice of chocolate raspberry truffle from Culvers.
This was followed by some conversation around the table and was overall just a good day.
It was one of those days that I don't normally get to experience. It was a nice break from my normal routine and, for a while anyway, it took my mind off the looming doom that hangs around me.
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