Chapter
Nine
Ice
Fishing – Cold Winter’s On The Ice
Ever
since I can remember I would go ice fishing on the frozen lakes in
the wintertime with my dad. When I was young, we would pull the car
up near Whitewater Lake and then we would hike out to our
predetermined fishing area. We always seemed to catch our limit of
fish at these times. As we got older, I remember him pulling his car
or truck right out onto the lake itself. We would then get our gear
out and fish nearby the vehicle. I had so much fun out fishing with
my brother, sister, and dad. It’s been a long time since we have
all gone fishing together, but I’m sure we will again soon.
Around
the time I turned twelve or so, we got a few snowmobiles. So when we
went ice fishing we usually brought two of them with us. I recall
one winter day while out ice fishing, my dad and I decided to shoot
around on the lake with the snowmobiles. Well, what we didn’t
notice the open water in the middle of the lake that was made from
the geese. They huddle in one specific area on the lake and for some
reason the water won’t freeze there. Well, just when we were right
about on that area of the lake we noticed the open water and veered
off in time to hit an area in the ice that had buckled upward due to
the ice expanding. It sent us both flying off of our snowmobiles,
along with bending our skis at almost a ninety degree angle. I
helped my dad up off the ice and made sure he was okay, luckily the
air was only knocked out of him. We did our best to flatten the skis
back out before starting the snowmobiles back up and heading out for
the day. We’d had enough at that point. After that there had been
a long gap that I didn’t go ice fishing for a long time.
Then, a
few years ago my dad started getting more motivation to go out
fishing in the winter time. So we got all the ice fishing gear
together and my brother and I both got new snow suits before we went
out fishing. For the last few years we’ve done quite a bit of ice
fishing and it made me so happy to be able to go out and spend the
day with my dad and brother without any other kind of distraction.
We would drive to Madison, WI and pull the ice shanty out onto Monona
Bay. Once we got some holes drilled into the ice we usually would
manage to do so much better than the people fishing near us on the
ice. I guess the luck was just with us when we went out there.
Someday when my niece and nephew get a little bit older I hope they
decide to go fishing with us out on the ice. Some people think it
would be too cold to sit out on a frozen lake for most of the day
jigging for fish that are sometimes only a few feet below where
you’re sitting, but in all actuality, it’s really not that bad.
When you get inside an ice shanty the sunlight naturally will warm it
up. So it wasn’t all that unusual for us to strip off our super
warm snow suit to fish in a t-shirt and jeans while we were inside
the shanty.
In the last couple of years that I went back to ice
fishing we usually caught our limit of bluegills and crappies within
three hours of hitting the ice. That’s pretty good ice fishing in
my opinion. I can’t wait to get back out there and do some more
fishing as soon as possible.
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