Ice Fishing 2008

Jan. 20, 2008. We are at Ron and Kathy's home in Galena, and Ron and I are going Ice Fishing! Unbelievably cold out! Saturday morning, the temp showed -18 degrees! We decided to venture outside and test the lake to see if it was frozen. It seemed weird stepping off the pier onto the lake, where before I'd step into Ron's pontoon boat. Hanging on to the posts, I carefully walked further out, and to my horror, Ron started jumping up and down on the hard water!

Apparently, the lake was frozen, but so were we, so we sensibly (does this word really apply to ice fishing?) headed back to Ron's to warm up. We would go fishing tomorrow, Sunday!

Sunday dawned at only -10 degrees, and as the sun came up it warmed up to 6 degrees (above!)

Tackle, auger, fish finder, mittens, buckets, seat cushions, ice scooper, libations, a can of corn (for bait), hugs from the wives, off we went, headed for adventure.

We stepped off the pier, and strolled out to the middle of the lake (actually, Ron strolled - I crept along listening intently for any cracking sounds).

The hard water held, and soon we were using the hand auger to drill a hole in the lake. It's hard to do - takes a lot of downward pressure, while turning the handle. Hole drilled. Corn can opened, corn on the hook, we lower our line from our special ice-fishing rods.

No luck - let's drill another in a different spot. So we did, and again lowered our lines. Things started breaking. Ron's transition glasses seemed to freeze to black. His camera froze closed. The little plastic ice fishing rod broke. We're getting the idea that it's just too cold! The hole keeps freezing up, so we scoop out the ice. The lines are freezing up with a chain of ice, as we bring them up. We take some pictures using Pat's camera, and decide, sensibly (again that word!) to head back to a nice warm fireplace and then dinner.

So we did, and that was that!